As we bake in heat wave with high electric bills, Kansas dithers on energy efficiency | Opinion
As we’re sweltering our way though a heat wave and high electric bills, I’m remembering about a dozen years or so ago when Westar Energy gave us a new thermostat for our house to save electricity.
It was called a WattSaver and it does two pretty important things to help keep down our bills:
It’s programmable, so we can set it to let it be warmer in the house when we know no one’s going to be there.
And it “cycles” the AC compressor, the outside unit that’s the real power suck. During peak electric usage, the thermostat can turn the compressor off for 15 minutes at a time, while still running the fan to keep cool air circulating inside the house.
A while back, the backlight that illuminates the LCD screen on the thermostat went dark. I changed the battery, but it didn’t do any good.
So my wife called Evergy, the power company formerly known as Westar, and asked about getting a replacement. Turns out, the WattSaver program was put in “maintenance mode” in 2015, so no new customers can sign up and there’s no equipment support for existing ones.
We can still use the thermostat with an external light source, so it’s not that big a deal as air conditioning problems go.
But it is a microcosmic example of Kansas’ entire energy-efficiency program — not working the way it should.
Don’t take my word for it.
In December, the nonprofit and nonpartisan American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy issued its annual State Energy Efficiency Scorecard.
On it, Kansas ranked 49th out of the 50 states for energy efficiency.
On transportation policies, Kansas scored 1.5 out of a possible 13. That was the bright spot.
We got 0.5 points each in the categories of Utility and Public Benefits, Building Energy Efficiency and State Government Initiatives — and zeroes for Industrial Policies and Appliance Efficiency Standards.
Overall, Kansas scored 3 out of a possible 50 points.
Thank God for Wyoming (2 out of 50), because without them, something like this could be really embarrassing.
The benefits of energy conservation are undeniable.
Every kilowatt we save is a kilowatt we don’t have to generate. And only an idiot would think it’s better to spend more to burn coal or gas to generate that kilowatt than spending less on not having to generate it in the first place.
There are many things we could be doing, including:
▪ We could give rebates to people who have to replace their air conditioning systems, to help them buy more expensive, but more energy-efficient equipment.
▪ We could give homeowners energy audits and help them out with the cost of improving their insulation and weatherstripping.
▪ We could offer consumers discounts on energy-saving products, like low-wattage LED lightbulbs and smart power strips, that turn off the power to game consoles, cable boxes and home theater equipment when no one’s using the TV.
▪ We could help people plant more shade trees on the sunny side of their house.
If only someone would make a formal proposal to do that.
Wait, someone did.
Evergy filed an energy-efficiency docket with the Kansas Corporation Commission to do all those things, and more. It’s been stuck in the process for almost two years now.
The holdup is that the commission staff thinks Evergy is asking for too much to run the program, while Evergy’s digging in its heels and saying if it doesn’t get what it wants, there won’t be a program.
Meanwhile, a 2014 state law says utilities in Kansas don’t have to provide any energy efficiency programs at all unless they agree with the terms.
So, until the two sides can hammer out a deal they can both live with, which seems unlikely at this point, or the law is changed to make them do it, which seems impossible, it’ll be status quo.
So, I guess we’ll keep on competing with Wyoming for worst in the nation at energy efficiency for a while.
And I’ll keep reading my smart thermostat by flashlight.
