Efficiency Is Sexy: Obama Announces New Standards, Stim Spending to Cut Energy Use

Building off the momentum of recent wins like increased auto fuel efficiency standards, and the House passage of clean energy and climate legislation, President Obama and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu have unveiled new federal standards for energy use by both commercial and home lamps and lighting equipment -- efficiency improvements that they say will save ratepayers nationwide up to $4 billion a year between 2012, when they take effect, and 2043.

The new rule has been in the works since late 2007, when President Bush signed a major energy bill into law.

"Now, I know light bulbs may not seem sexy, but this simple action holds enormous promise because 7 percent of all the energy consumed in America is used to light our homes and our businesses," said President Obama.

The White House won't be left in the dark on energy efficiency, promised Obama. "Secretary Chu has already started to take a look at our light bulbs, and we're going to see what we need to replace them with energy-efficient light bulbs," he said.

In addition to the projected savings to consumers from reduced electricity bills, DOE says the new efficiency standards will:

• Avoid the emission of up to 594 million tons of CO2 from 2012 through 2042 - roughly equivalent to removing 166 million cars from the road for a year; • Save enough electricity from 2012 through 2042 to power every home in the U.S. for up to 10 months; • Eliminate the need for up to 7.3 gigawatts of new generating capacity by 2042 - equivalent to as many as 14 500MW coal-fired power plants;

• Decrease the electricity used in GSFLs by 15%, saving consumers up to $8.66 per lamp over its lifetime; decreasing electricity used by IRLs by 25%, saving consumers $7.95 per lamp over its lifetime.

Meeting the press in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Obama and Chu also announced that $346 million of stimulus money will go to accelerating energy efficiency initiatives for homes and commercial buildings:

$100 million is being directed to developing integrated building operating systems, in order to maximize their energy efficiency and ultimately "achieve net zero- energy buildings."

$70 million is being allocated to retrofitting existing homes for energy conservation, as well as supporting efficiency in new homes and educating the public. "The projects will provide technical support to train workers and create jobs ... and will permit a major initiative to provide builders with technical assistance and training through states, utilities, and existing programs to increase the market share of new homes achieving substantial whole house energy savings," says DoE's statement.

"To address existing homes, DOE will work with municipalities with a variety of housing types and vintages as well as subdivisions with similar housing stock to encourage a large number of energy efficiency retrofits."

$53.3 million will go to expanding "Commercial Buildings Initiative" partnerships that support achievement of high energy efficiency across "fleets" of commercial buildings.

The government will also invest $50 million in research, development, and speedy market adoption of solid-state lighting technologies.

And finally, $72.5 million is being alloted to several efforts under the broad rubric of "building and appliance market transformation." These include:

Expanding the reach of Energy Star, the government's flagship consumer energy efficiency program that covers home appliances and electronics.

"Preparing the design, construction, and enforcement community" to adopt new commercial building codes that will mandate 30% reductions in energy use (compared to the 2004 code) by 2010.

Spending under this umbrella will also, apparently, address a major criticism of the Energy Star program: that its appliance standards and testing methods have not kept up with the market. Initiatives here will include "accelerating and expanding DOE's Appliance Standards program to evaluate innovative technologies and develop new test procedures that are more representative of today's energy use and equipment."

During the press conference, the president repeated his call to the Senate to enact clean energy and climate change legislation.

"The House of Representatives came together to pass an extraordinary piece of legislation that will finally open the door to decreasing our dependence on foreign oil, preventing the worst consequences of climate change, and making clean energy the profitable kind of energy," said President Obama. The Senate should put aside "the posturing and the politics," and the "attacks that are based less on evidence than on ideology," to get its own bill passed.

Here's the video of the press conference: