SAN FRANCISCO, CA — EnerNOC’s Gregg Dixon compares the competition between on-site renewable energy generation versus reducing energy demand to an MTV celebrity death match.
Which is more valuable?
In one corner we have on-site renewable energy projects that tend to carry more sex appeal, largely due to the industry’s great job of marketing itself; there’s even a renewable girls calendar. In the other corner are demand response and energy efficiency, which many would agree are anything but sexy.
The complex answer is both, Dixon said during a webcast held at GreenBiz.com’s VERGE virtual conference. Employing many strategies and technologies are going to ultimately maximize energy management programs, but companies have to find a way to “reduce before they produce.”
“If we don’t get efficient first, it’s the equivalent of not filling the hulls of a ship while replacing the masts and sail,” Dixon said.
There is plenty of research supporting that energy efficiency is the single-largest untapped source for energy management, Dixon said. On a relative cost basis, energy efficiency “blows renewable energy out of the water.” Some predict solar energy could reach cost parity with the expected electric retail rates within five years, Dixon said, but noted these types of predictions aren’t new.
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