Duke Energy adds neighborhood energy efficiency program in South Carolina

Last fall we wrote about Progress Energy’s successful implementation of its Neighborhood Energy Saver program. We are happy to announce that this program has already inspired change in our region: as of last week, Duke Energy South Carolina will be joining the growing group of utilities offering a low-income neighborhood implementation program.

Progress making progress with low-income energy efficiency program

This blog was written by SACE intern Jeannie McKinney and Natalie Mims. Finding best practices in utility-led energy efficiency programs usually means looking beyond our region. Sadly, most of the leading programs are developed and demonstrated by peer utilities in other regions of the U.S. It has been particularly distressing to see that the great [...]

Southeast is movin on up in ACEEE state scorecard ranking

The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE ) released their 5th annual state scorecard on energy efficiency yesterday and the results, not surprisingly, support that the efficiency sector continues to grow and create jobs. The report found that the nationwide budget for electricity efficiency programs increased $1.1 billion from 2009 to 2010, and [...]

Georgia Power and Efficiency – Not Out of the Bottom Yet

This blog was written by SACE intern Jeannie McKinney and Natalie Mims. According to their second quarter report for 2011,*Georgia Power Company (GPC) has only accomplished 9 percent of their annual energy savings goal for the current year. In an effort to help their state “out of the bottom of national and regional comparisons on [...]

Energy Efficiency in Mississippi

On August 4, the Mississippi Public Service Commission took a huge step forward in supporting energy efficiency by issuing an order proposing energy efficiency programs and standards. Prior to this order, the state did not have any utility efficiency regulations in place. The order comes after the Commission opened a docket (2010-AD-2) to investigate developing [...]

SACE 2010 Carbon Footprint Results

Southern Alliance for Clean Energy recently underwent a short stint of navel gazing by calculating its annual carbon footprint for the second time, and we took appropriate action to attain carbon neutral certification for 2010. While SACE can still make many improvements, we have taken steps to more accurately measure our carbon footprint than in [...]

Personal Choice and Freedom Unaffected by Federal Lighting Standard

This blog was written by SACE intern Rachel Mountain and Natalie Mims. Beginning January 1, 2012, the federal government is implementing a lighting standard that requires incandescent bulbs to be at least 30% more efficient, resulting in a $7 billion reduction in consumer energy bills by 2020. Further, the lighting efficiency standard will reduce energy [...]