Has Energy Efficiency Become Less Important?

Energy Efficiency Today and for the Future

As we move toward a carbon-free future, it is easy to overlook the value of efficiency. Most measures home performance contractors use to save energy are invisible to the average homeowner or buyer. Efficiency improvements are not sexy, and most folks would be hard-pressed to name more than one energy efficiency measure contractors install regularly.

In contrast, solar panels are eye-catching, and electric vehicles make a statement. Buzzwords like decarbonization and electrification dominate the conversation. However, I believe that discounting the value of efficiency is a mistake. Efficiency has proven itself many times over as the lowest-cost and least harmful way to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions.

The history of energy consumption in California shows just how impactful energy efficiency can be and why it absolutely must play a role in our journey toward a clean energy future.

How Building Science Changed the Trajectory of Energy Consumption in California

Building science is based on measuring the impacts of various improvements on a building to determine the most effective ones. The origins of this approach date back to the early 1970s, when the Canadian government was developing public housing projects and wanted to know which solutions made the most sense. They asked some researchers to provide scientific evidence on which measures had the most impact.

The researchers were tasked with evaluating various scenarios and then measuring them to build a baseline approach to what improvements were the most impactful. They asked hard questions, such as:

• Is it better to heat a home with electricity or natural gas?
• What type of insulation is the most effective?
• How do different insulation R-values balance cost-effectiveness with heat loss?
• What impact do air leaks have on overall energy efficiency?

To answer some of these questions, the researchers developed specialized testing equipment to pressurize buildings, heating and cooling air duct systems, and more. They even adapted specialty tools, like infrared cameras, designed for completely different applications.

Many of their findings were contrary to standard building practices at the time. Until this point, most standard building practices were passed down by tradespeople from generation to generation. These practices were based on factors beyond energy and likely influenced by cost and labor more than effectiveness. Even today, many standard building practices are based on craftsmanship over science.

The building science industry accelerated with the oil crises of the 1970s, as once abundant and cheap energy sources became scarce and expensive. Saving energy meant saving money. Lots of people became interested in the findings from the early building science studies.

In 1978, California integrated some best practices from these studies into its building codes. Today, we refer to these codes as the “Energy Codes” or, more formally, “Title 24, Section 6 building codes.” Arthur H. Rosenfeld, a distinguished scientist working at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, was an early pioneer in this period. Some refer to him as the Godfather of Energy Efficiency. Working together with policymakers, many of Art’s findings entered the building codes.

Art’s energy efficiency policies had a tremendous impact. California’s population grew dramatically from the 1970s until the early 2000s, yet our per capita energy consumption was essentially flat. Today, our per capita energy use is still the lowest in the nation. Due to his contribution, this growth curve has been labeled the Rosenfeld Effect or the Rosenfeld Curve.

By some estimates, adopting these energy codes has allowed California to avoid building twenty-one nuclear power plants over the past forty years. Imagine California’s landscape with twenty-one additional nuclear power plants and all the problems they create. 

The Evolving Role of Energy Efficiency

As we transition to a carbon-free future, some people question the continuing value of energy efficiency. I am not one of them. We have benefited immensely from including efficiency requirements in our building codes and should continue supporting measures that save energy as we move toward a decarbonized future.

The impacts of traditional efficiency may be different than they were forty years ago, but that does not diminish their value. While electrification is needed to move away from burning fossil fuels, many are concerned about the extra load this will put on the grid. To address this challenge, the Biden administration allocated $30 billion to modernize the grid through the bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). This is the largest electrical grid infrastructure investment in the nation’s history.  Think about how much further we can stretch these funds if we focus on reducing waste in the system at the same time. Efficiency means doing more with the same or less. If we reduce the loads first and then electrify, everybody wins.

Efficiency First California was founded to promote the value of a “whole-house approach” to saving energy, and we have been touting the multiple benefits of energy efficiency for quite some time. Our messaging, though, has evolved. Traditionally, we promoted non-energy benefits of home performance, like improved comfort, health, durability, and lower operational costs.

Today, we can add a new set of grid-related advantages of efficiency improvements. Energy efficiency efforts reduce peak loads, minimize the need for electrical panel upgrades, enhance demand response capabilities, and reduce the burden on the electrical grid as a whole.

Efficient buildings can be heated and cooled with smaller heat pumps, which reduces costs and reduces the impact of electrification on the grid.  In addition to overall savings, efficient buildings reduce peak loads when high demand makes electricity more expensive. Reducing peak loads is also required to prevent brow-outs from lack of capacity. Efficiency upgrades are effective for the life of the building, unlike mechanical equipment that needs to be replaced every ten to fifteen years.

We have had over forty years of success by adopting energy codes into our building codes. I see no reason for us not to continue doing everything we can to reduce the amount of energy we use. Policymakers are counting on energy efficiency savings to meet their carbon reduction goals. If anything, the value of saving energy is greater now than ever before. Saving energy is a winning proposition and will continue to be long into the future.

This article originally appeared in the Efficiency First California blog and is republished with permission.