Efficiency Vermont exceeds three-year performance goals

Burlington, VT

Efficiency Vermont delivered more value for less money in its most recent three-year performance period, exceeding energy savings goals, providing highly rated customer support, and increasing operational efficiencies.

Efficiency Vermont will request that $193,000 that it saved in its three-year budget be used to reduce future energy efficiency charges on customer electric utility bills.

Efficiency Vermont earned high marks from customers who interact with the utility with regards to their energy concerns and questions. According to survey data collected from customers, 90.8 percent of respondents said they were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the support they received when they called Efficiency Vermont.

In addition to high customer satisfaction, Efficiency Vermont also exceeded its goals for the 2015-2017 period, out-performing in eight out of the nine goals established by the Vermont Public Utility Commission (PUC) to drive more energy savings and associated benefits to the environment and economy. Efficiency Vermont exceeded its total electricity savings goal by 22 percent for a total of 392,000 MWh. This equates to enough electricity to power 40,888 homes for one year.

“Efficiency Vermont is committed to delivering energy efficiency savings for our customers to help them save money and make their homes and businesses more comfortable,” said Efficiency Vermont Director Karen Glitman. “At the same time, we strive to operate as cost-effectively as possible, which is why we proposed a 5 percent budget reduction in 2018.”

Efficiency Vermont also exceeded the PUC’s summer peak demand reduction goal of 41,300 kilowatts, reducing the peak by 45,617 kW – 10 percent more than the goal. Summer peak is the period when electricity demand is the highest, and is the level for which new infrastructure improvements are planned.

“Reducing summer peak delivers two benefits for Vermonters,” noted Glitman. “It helps avoid the need for costly new transmission infrastructure, while at the same time providing capacity savings that we bid into the ISO New England Forward Capacity Market (FCM) Revenues from the FCM provide millions of dollars of funding annually to help Vermont families and business keep warm for less money during the winter.”

2017 Highlights

Efficiency Vermont reported its results for the final year of the 2015-2017 triennial performance period by filing its 2017 Savings Claim Summary with the PUC on April 2. Highlights from Efficiency Vermont’s work in 2017 include:

• Business customers:
  • 15,500 business served
  • More than $107 million in savings over the lifetime of their 2017 energy efficiency improvements
• Residential customers:
  • 106,400 households served
  • More than $80 million in energy savings of over the lifetime of their 2017 energy efficiency improvements
  • $6.7 million in lifetime savings for low-income Vermonters
• Partners Efficiency Vermont worked with in 2017:
  • 801 equipment suppliers
  • 313 retailers
  • 918 contractor companies
  • 148 building design firms
• System benefits
  • 16.6 percent of Vermont’s 2017 electric needs met by energy efficiency
  • Cost of saving electricity through energy efficiency was 3.5 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) in 2017, compared with 8.5 cents per kWh to supply electricity
  • Cost of saving fossil fuel through energy efficiency was $16.25 per MMBtu in 2017, compared to $18.31 per MMBtu to supply fossil fuel
• Environmental benefit
  • 842,293 US tons of carbon dioxide emissions avoided over the lifetime of the energy efficiency improvements made in 2017 – the equivalent of removing 163,642 passenger cars from the road for one year

About Efficiency Vermont

As the nation’s first Energy Efficiency Utility, Efficiency Vermont has helped Vermont avoid over 13.2 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions and has received the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR program Partner of the Year – Sustained Excellence award for the last eight consecutive years. Efficiency Vermont works with partners to help our state transition to more affordable, low carbon energy use through education, incentives, and support for our clean energy workforce. Learn more at www.efficiencyvermont.com.

Efficiency Vermont Press Contact
Matthew Smith
Phone: (802) 540-7662
[email protected]