Efficiency seen as way to brighter future

Refrigerator improvements pointed to as example of where savings can be made

By DAVE DOWNEY -  North County Times Staff Writer

Sunday, July 13, 2008

While utilities constantly are searching for new sources of energy and stringing wires, there is an octogenarian scientist in Sacramento who has been laser focused for nearly a generation on another strategy for ensuring enough electricity to light homes: using power efficiently.

Art Rosenfeld, the 82-year-old physicist and California energy commissioner who has been called the "father of energy efficiency," has been spending the better part of 3 1/2 decades figuring out ways to stretch existing power supplies.

And Rosenfeld said there is a potential to save much more.

He estimated that over the next decade or so, energy experts will figure out how to reduce electric use in the typical home by up to 50 percent.

Rosenfeld isn't talking about ditching any glitzy, newfangled electronic gadgets. He's talking about saving energy by simply doing things better ---- more efficiently.

"I think the trend will be toward making much more energy-efficient houses," he said in a telephone interview last week.

Energy efficiency comes up in the debate over San Diego Gas & Electric Co.'s proposed $1.5 billion Sunrise Powerlink high-voltage transmission line.

That project's 500-kilovolt and 230-kilovolt wires would run from El Centro to Carmel Valley through Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Santa Ysabel, Ramona and Rancho Penasquitos.

Conservationists and community activists who oppose it say there are ways to curb the ever-rising demand for power and eliminate the need for a power line. Utility officials counter that efficiency programs can help offset growing electricity use to a degree, but not enough to negate the need for the line.

Michael Shames, executive director for the advocacy group Utility Consumers' Action Network in San Diego, which opposes Sunrise, disagrees.

"Efficiency is critical, largely because it is the quickest and least expensive means of providing for our energy needs," he said last week. "If we are able to squeeze the waste out of our electrical system, then we don't need to add new, costly generation resources."

While utility officials contend major new sources of electricity are required, they say efficiency figures prominently in their long-term regional energy strategy.

"Energy efficiency is the least expensive and most environmentally friendly resource available and is a very high priority for us," said Rachel Laing, a spokeswoman for SDG&E.

While state regulators sort over the debate and the California Public Utilities Commission prepares to issue a decision on the project's fate by the end of this year, one thing is clear: Past efficiency initiatives have greatly reduced the need for more power.

The best such example in the home is the refrigerator.

Older models, with their hot motors and thin doors that never stayed shut, used to be massive energy hogs.

But following a generation of improvements in design, Rosenfeld said, the icebox now uses about one-fourth as much power as it did during the 1973 oil embargo.

And that's despite the fact newer models are bigger than the old ones.

The size of electricity savings is comparable to some of the nation's largest sources of energy.

Rosenfeld said that through refrigerator design standards, the country now saves, every year, the equivalent of the output of 80 power plants that generate 500 megawatts each. That's the size of SDG&E's Palomar Energy Center in Escondido.

Put another way, Rosenfeld said, the value of the electricity saved is twice the value of the power produced by the nation's hydroelectric projects.

"Refrigerator improvements are twice as important as all the dams in the United States put together," he said.

Rosenfeld said significant energy savings also have been realized by making household appliances more efficient, by better insulating homes and by improving cooling and heating systems.

While refrigerators use one-quarter of the power that they did in the early 1970s, central air conditioning units use half, he said.

More recently, he said, Californians have been saving energy by replacing the incandescent bulbs in their light fixtures with compact fluorescent bulbs.

"The state is pretty much being saturated with compact fluorescent lamps," he said, although some don't like their tendency to brighten slowly.

"People will complain, but we are fighting a huge global warming risk and we are going to have to make some adjustments," Rosenfeld said.

Rosenfeld started making adjustments back in 1973, when the OPEC oil embargo was in full swing and long lines of cars were building at gas stations.

It dawned on him that by turning off the lights in his office at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories over the weekend, he could save 4 gallons of gas.

He also is credited for starting a California campaign to use energy more efficiently, by demanding tougher standards for the way builders construct homes and the way manufacturers make appliances.

And, 35 years later, the state's consumers, despite all the new gadgets and big-screen televisions, are using about the same amount of electricity per person ---- about 7,000 kilowatt-hours a year.

During the same period, per capita use nationwide has risen from 8,000 kilowatt-hours a year to about 12,000 kilowatt-hours.

Rosenfeld estimated that the savings from doing things more efficiently amounts to about 15 percent of the total electricity Californians use in a year.

"I think what Art Rosenfeld has done is absolutely outstanding," said Bill Powers, a San Diego engineer and activist who opposes the Sunrise line. "California was right to focus on energy efficiency."

Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 745-6611, Ext. 2623, or ddowney [at] nctimes [dot] com.