Energy Efficiency

Energy efficiency is all about doing more with less. It doesn’t mean going without.

In fact, few people realize that energy efficiency has been the main “fuel” powering our economy for the past quarter century. Over that time, savings from energy efficiency have been greater than what any other fuel has produced – including coal!

Over time, improved building codes and appliance standards allow our homes and appliances to use less and less energy, even while performance increases. In some parts of the country, utilities have stepped in. They’ve offered incentives for everything from replacing old bulbs with compact fluorescent lights to making it easier to purchase better performing air conditioners.

In these parts of the country, energy efficiency has led to energy savings equal to a big coal plant many times over!

The best thing about energy efficiency is that it costs utilities less than half the money it takes to build a coal plant. At the same time, it makes your energy bill go down. More efficiency means more money in your pocket at the end of the month!

Some utilities in South Carolina are finally coming around to energy efficiency. Duke and Progress both have set goals to save thousands of megawatts of energy in the coming years – enough to power half a million homes or more.

The state’s electric cooperatives – Santee Cooper’s biggest customer – recently studied how much they could save through efficiency and found that they could get as much as 900 MW.

If Santee Cooper’s biggest customer can save more than a coal plant’s worth of energy through energy efficiency, imagine how much Santee Cooper could save.

In planning for its new coal plant, Santee Cooper has never studied how much it could save through energy efficiency. While the utility touts its commitment to energy efficiency, in reality, Santee Cooper saves less than 0.01% of the energy it sells every year.

If Santee Cooper got serious about helping its customers become more efficient, they wouldn’t need a new coal plant.