Conservation is not only the cleanest and safest source of electricity available, it is also the cheapest. It costs SMUD half as much money to acquire power by saving it than to buy it outright, or to build new power plants. SMUD's General Manager S. David Freeman tells SMUD's customers, "I want to buy the power you're wasting. I can buy that cheaper than I can buy another power plant."
Energy conservation has come a long way since President Carter put on a sweater and asked Americans to use less energy. In those days, conserving energy meant "freezing in the dark." The latest energy conserving technologies not only use less energy, they also are often an improvement over current technologies. For example, the Environmental Center's new fluorescent lights not only use less energy than common fluorescent lights, they also give off a noticeably better light and do not flicker or hum. A well-insulated home not only uses less energy than otherwise, it is also less drafty and more comfortable.
One emphasis of SMUD's conservation program is on new construction for both homes and businesses. It is much easier to build properly the first time than to go back and retrofit a building. SMUD is working with builders and architects to see that new buildings are constructed in an energy efficient manner.
Another emphasis of the conservation program is to serve the low-income residents of Sacramento. A $60 monthly electric bill impacts a person making $1400 a month much more than someone making $4800 a month. To help the community where it needs the most attention, one of the focal points of SMUD's residential energy program is low-income communities and people.
For people living in homes and apartments, SMUD is concentrating on refrigerators, lights, heating and cooling systems. That innocent looking 10-year-old refrigerator in the kitchen could well be using $50-$60- a year more electricity than an efficient new one. SMUD is giving customers up to $250 for the trade-in of an old refrigerator and the purchase of a highly efficient new one. In the last seven months, almost 6000 SMUD customers traded in old refrigerators. They are lined up near the light rail tracks in Sacramento, and are quite a sight. SMUD is responsibly disposing of the old refrigerators, collecting the CFC's from both the refrigerant and the insulation (which contains twice as many CFC's as the refrigerant). The refrigerators are then sold for scrap. Just for reference, a refrigerator with a loose-fitting door can use $350 a year worth of electricity. A super-efficient refrigerator made by a company in Humboldt County uses less than $20 a year worth of electricity.
SMUD is also providing free compact fluorescent lamps during energy audits.
These lights only use 1/4 the electricity and last ten times as long as a regular light bulb. They seem expensive at first (PGandE is selling them for under $10, about half the cost other businesses pay for them), but each bulb will save $40 over its 10,000 hour lifetime. Using one compact fluorescent for four hours a night will save almost $6.00 a year on electric bills--one light bulb! If all 400,000 of SMUD's customers replace just one light bulb that is lit four hours a night with a compact fluorescent, the equivalent of 4500 homes worth of electricity will be saved.
SMUD is working with the Sacramento Tree Foundation to provide free shade trees. Besides making an area more pleasant and cleansing the air, well-placed shade trees can cut a person's air conditioning bill by as much as 40%. In the next ten years, SMUD intends to plant half a million trees; the goal for 1991 is 25,000. Utilities across the country are looking to copy SMUD's shade tree program.
After conserving as much energy as possible, SMUD still has to supply a large amount of electricity to its customers. SMUD is doing its best to supply this energy in a responsible manner, using renewable and clean resources. SMUD is considering several local resources that are now seen as waste, including almond shells, rice hulls, landfill gas and methane from the sewage treatment plant. These local "waste" products will eventually provide SMUD with 225 megawatts of electricity in a sustainable, clean manner within the bioregion. SMUD is also evaluating an additional 225 megawatts from wind, solar-thermal and geothermal resources.
All sources of energy have costs--environmental, societal and monetary. This is the strongest argument for energy conservation; the less energy produced, the smaller the environmental impacts. As anyone with a photovoltaic system knows, it is dramatically cheaper not to use power than to have to produce it. However, light, power, motors, and the other uses of electricity are regarded as necessities in our society. Until very recently, electric utilities were in the business of selling kilowatt-hours of electricity. SMUD and several other utilities have undergone a transformation in their thinking. They no longer see themselves as selling the electricity, but the service that the electricity performs, such as chilling food or lighting a room. Since customers are concerned more with cold food and a well-lighted room than how much electricity they use, utilities are discovering that it is cost-effective for them to meet these needs with the minimum amount of electricity. Because power plants are becoming increasingly expensive to build (as social and environmental costs are included that were previously ignored), it is cheaper for the utilities to "produce" power by saving it somewhere else than to produce it from scratch.
I never would have imagined that I would ever work for a utility, but then I never would have imagined that a utility would give away free trees, compact fluorescent lamps, or honestly try to provide electrical service in an environmentally and socially responsible manner. SMUD has become a national leader in providing responsible electrical service.
(Ed. Note: Jeff Coyle is a MEC member living in Sacramento. These are his views, and not necessarily those of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. You may contact Jeff through the MEC.)
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 2004
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited