Clean Energy In the News

The General Assembly has passed a bill that requires boilers, furnaces, and a handful of other products sold in Rhode Island to meet certain energy efficiency standards.

Supporters say the The Energy and Consumer Savings Act of 2006, if signed into law by Governor Carcieri, will cut down on energy usage in the state, diminish the need to build new power plants in the region and save consumers money on their utility bills.

"Energy efficiency is the quickest, smartest and cheapest way for Rhode Island to cut energy costs and reduce pollution from power plants," said Matt Auten, an advocate with the Rhode Island Public Interest Research Group, or RIPIRG.

RIPIRG was a key proponent of the bill, which was introduced in the House by Rep. Arthur Handy, D-Cranston, and in the Senate by Sen. Elizabeth Roberts, D-Cranston.

The proposed law would amend one enacted last year that set efficiency standards for 13 household and commercial appliances by adding five items that must meet the standards.

They include residential furnaces and boilers, bottle-type water dispensers, commercial hot-food holding cabinets, walk-in refrigerators and freezers, and certain lighting products.

RIPIRG said these products were chosen because they will produce "significant energy savings for consumers in a short period of time" and because energy-efficient models that meet the standards are already available.

Auten, of RIPIRG, said that the biggest benefit of the new legislation would come from the standards for furnaces and boilers. The law would require new natural gas- and propane-fired furnaces to be at least 90 percent efficient, and oil-fired furnaces to be at least 84 percent efficient. Boilers would have to be 82 percent to 84 percent efficient, depending on the fuel source.

RIPIRG estimates that savings in today's dollars would be more than $100 million. Statewide annual energy usage would be reduced by 2020 by an amount equivalent to that used by 9,300 households, the group said.

If the bill becomes law, the standards for furnaces and boilers might take four years to take effect, Auten said. That's because the federal government already has efficiency standards in place that are Below those mandated by the bill. The state would have to apply for a waiver from the U.S. Department of Energy to allow the Rhode Island standards to supersede the federal ones, Auten said. That process could take until 2010, he said.

In the case of the other products, state officials would have until June 1, 2007, to adopt regulations to carry out the law's mandate.

Rhode Island and a handful of other states have taken the lead in developing energy standards, according to Andrew deLalski, executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, based in Boston.

The other states include Arizona, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington, according to RIPIRG.

DeLalski said the federal government has been slow to develop new energy standards and to update old ones. He said the Department of Energy is supposed to issue new standards for furnaces sometime in the next year. The current standard is more than 10 years old, he said.

The Rhode Island bill did generate some opposition. GAMA, an industry group formerly known as the Gas Appliance Manufacturing Association, warned that setting new efficiency standards would make the affected products significantly more expensive.

The group said that the average home furnace would cost an extra $2,800, and the average boiler, $1,000 more.

RIPIRG said the association's figures were "pure fiction" and said it based its own projections on data published by the Department of Energy.

RIPIRG said that based on its calculations, the up-front price increase associated with the new efficiency standard would be about $473 for gas furnaces and about $114 for oil furnaces. It estimated the increase for oil boilers to be about $29, and gas boilers to be about $114 more expensive.

The group said that higher up-front costs would be paid back to the customer in the form of lower energy bills. The payback period would take from a few months to three years, depending on the equipment type, RIPIRG said.