“No more thousand-page ‘Technical Resource Documents’; those are too heavy to lift, let alone read. No more ‘too big and too expensive to analyze’ proprietary models and data bases that take a team of computer scientists to maintain and operate. No more ‘too big to sue’ tactics of intimidation of anyone who dares to challenge DOE’s ‘energy efficiency’ hegemony.”
Part I yesterday summarized the June 10th hearing from the major presenters. Part II today presents the highlights of the remaining assorted written comments where they provide additional insights not specifically covered above:
These comments focused on DOE’s shortcomings in its ongoing efforts to ban non-condensing furnaces. The following excerpt nails it.
…“It is not possible, let alone cost-effective, to install a highly efficient condensing furnace.
“Over the years, there have been numerous iterations of more stringent minimum efficiency mandates for the most important appliances. Thus, the most economical ‘low hanging fruit’ has generally been picked clean with diminishing returns from continued picking.”
“Under the Obama Administration, DOE’s appliance energy efficiency oversight has been expanded far more than previous Administrations, from 15 appliance product categories to 60 product categories.”
Earlier this month, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy & Power held the above-named hearing. In all, it was much better than the usual lopsided infomercial under the guise of a hearing. There was not time for all “stakeholders” to speak, but anyone could submit written testimony.
These were the witnesses:
“Demand-side management is authoritarian, tyrannical, and has no place in a free society. It’s time we stopped the trend of having more and more of our lives coming under the control of politicians….”
“The original notion behind DSM was that it is cheaper to save energy than to produce it. That’s true if consumers take their own actions, but not with high-overhead, high-profit utility-run plans.”
“The right thing to do is to make all Demand Side Management programs completely voluntary or abolish them outright.”
BEFORE THE GEORGIA PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION
In the Matter of: Georgia Power Company’s Request for Approval (Docket Nos. 40161 & 40162 of its 2016 IRP and Decertification of Certain Generating Units)
Brief of Resource Supply Management
Georgia Power’s Demand-side Management [DSM] for commercial customers is a huge rip-off, accomplishing little or nothing beyond energy efficiency improvements that happen anyway.…