NW Energy Coalition – For a clean and affordable energy future

You have a stake in making our region even more energy efficient than it is. Energy efficiency is the cleanest and cheapest way to meet most of our region’s new energy needs and our goals to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. Many organizations throughout the Northwest are already hard at work saving energy. But more can be done. That’s what this paper is about: getting over the hurdles to increased energy efficiency and getting to solutions. We have a lot to lose if we wait and a lot to gain if we act.

Barriers,
 Opportunities 
& 
Solutions 
to 
Financing 
Energy
 Efficiency 
for 
Small
 and
 Mid‐sized 
Businesses 
in 
the 
Northwest


The up-front costs of energy efficiency improvements may just be the king of barriers to energy waste reduction at the scale that will allow us to stop building costly and polluting new electric generating plants.

The Coalition’s Efficiency Works! project has commissioned a study of Northwest lending for energy efficiency projects in small and mid-sized commercial enterprises. The goal is to examine the current landscape, including the barriers encountered by existing programs, and offer a menu of solutions…

Northwesterners can save enough electricity to power the region’s economic growth over the next decade, according to a new study from the NW Energy Coalition.

The study, The Power of Efficiency: Pacific Northwest Conservation Potential through 2020, also shows increased efficiency can cut new regional natural gas demand in half.

Bright Future shows that the Northwest has ample, affordable energy conservation and renewable energy resources to serve future power needs and fulfill our climate responsibilities while reviving our economy. For negligible costs compared to continued reliance on dirty power sources, we can cover future electric demands (including those for electric-powered vehicles), help salmon survive both climate change and the hydrosystem, shut down the highly polluting coal plants now serving the region and meet state and regional greenhouse gas reduction goals.

Released by a coalition of taxpayer, business and conservation groups (including NW Energy Coalition), this study shows that removal of four dams on the lower Snake River in Washington state will save U.S. taxpayers and Northwest electricity consumers billions of dollars while increasing tourism, creating new outdoor recreation, and improving sport and commercial fishing opportunities.

A report from the Tellus Institute shows the Northwest can meet its growing need for electricity by increasing energy efficiency and investing in new sources of renewable power generation. Thanks to recent innovations, clean energy technologies are primed to compete with gas plants, the economic benchmark for new power generation. The results of the Tellus study cast doubt on the need for additional fossil fuel generation in the Northwest.