by Willy Ritch

A Sunday Washington Post story on energy efficiency efforts by states and utilities points out that we’ve been down this road before.  In the 80s it was called “conservation” instead of “efficiency,” and it was a strategy that was abandoned by utilities during the deregulation era, when they were cutting costs to try and become more competitive.  Rising energy prices and the growing realization that we have to do something about global warming has brought about a revival, but these are not your parents’ conservation programs:

Advocates of energy-efficiency programs say today’s strategies are more refined because of new technology. The twisty, low-energy light bulbs, which use one-third of the power of conventional ones, didn’t exist a decade ago. Hot-water heaters, stoves and other appliances burn far less power now than they used to.

“What was energy efficient 10 years ago is not energy efficient today,” said Malcolm Woolf, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s top energy adviser….

Today’s programs are being marketed more aggressively and offer homeowners more incentives.

“Marketed”–there is an important word.  Instead of lecturing the public about how they must turn down their thermostats and not drive as much, we now know that it’s much more effective to market clean energy and energy efficiency as if they were any other product–like Apple computers or Coke.  Communicating the benefits of efficiency instead of talking about “conservation” in terms of sacrifice is so much more effective.  (And it’s what we do here at SmartPower.)