This piece from TWW’s Arizona Director Doran Miller originally ran on October 30, 2020 in a special section on energy issues in the Arizona Capitol Times.
Regulators should be commended for moving on energy policy issues
Commentary by Doran Arik Miller
Polling clearly shows that Arizonans, like other Western voters, want their elected officials to engage on energy and environmental issues in constructive and meaningful ways. Western states policymakers, in turn, are increasingly leading on environmental issues by driving policies that support clean energy innovation and market-based solutions to environmental challenges. The recent vote by the Arizona Corporation Commission to adopt higher energy efficiency standards is exactly the kind of pragmatic and market-oriented approach that Arizonans want to see.
Recent polling conducted by the Conservative Energy Network found that Arizonans across the political spectrum favor market-oriented policies to address pressing energy needs and environmental concerns. Overall, 87% of likely Arizona voters believe that government should play a role to accelerate the development and use of clean energy, and 65% preferred a market approach to expanding clean energy production.
Arizonans also favor policies that encourage energy efficiency. An early August poll conducted by The Western Way found that 85% of conservative Arizona voters would tell a candidate for office to support policies that encourage energy efficiency. Given Arizonans’ preference for a market-oriented approach, their general support for energy efficiency policies makes sense. With benefits to residential, commercial, and industrial users in the form of lower utility bills, energy efficiency measures are widely popular.
Energy efficiency, at its most basic level, is just using less energy to get the same job completed, and it is generally regarded as the cheapest way to avoid higher rates for energy by using existing generation more efficiently with less waste. Arizona’s utilities already offer a range of programs to meet Arizona’s existing energy efficiency standard by incentivizing demand-side adoption of energy efficiency measures, including residential rebates for smart thermostats, energy efficient pool equipment, lighting and home improvements, and commercial programs dealing with demand response and incentives on efficient upgrades.
The new energy efficiency standard, which has been part of the ACC’s ongoing efforts to modernize Arizona’s Energy Rules and would replace the standard set in 2010, would require utilities to implement energy efficiency measures by 2030 that are equivalent to 35% of their 2020 peak demand. This new standard has the potential to open the door for even greater use of existing energy efficiency measures as well as new innovations in home storage, automation, and smart grid technology. The new standard will also provide the kind of long-term market certainty that is necessary to drive increased innovation.
The ACC should be commended for finally moving on important energy policy issues facing the state of Arizona with bipartisan agreement. There is significant common ground on energy and environmental issues that too often goes unnoticed, and making progress on updating and modernizing our state’s energy rules shows that pragmatic solutions, which voters hold as a priority, are possible.