Electricity's new mantra: Use it AND lose it

It’s a strange thing to expect a business to try and sell less of what it traffics in, but that’s precisely what energy-efficiency standards focused on utilities aim to do.

What’s more, utility companies are becoming very good at selling less of their top product: electricity. But consumers are the ones paying for that privilege.

A new study from the Edison Foundation’s Institute for Electric Efficiency, for instance, finds that electricity efficiency programs in the US in 2010 saved enough energy to power nearly 10 million homes for a year. Nationwide, of all the efficiency program budgets supported by ratepayer (that’s you and me) dollars in 2011, 84 percent was led by electric utilities.

In other words, utility companies are setting aside a lot of money to encourage customers to buy less of what they’re selling. But it’s consumers who are providing the cash.

Welcome to the brave new 21st-century energy world.

Not that there’s anything wrong with energy efficiency. Using less electricity (and less of many other things) has already become an imperative for millions across the US and elsewhere who’ve been pinched hard by the economy. Globally, energy prices are trending in one predominant direction: upward. And anything we can do to defend against worsening climate impacts by cutting fossil-fuel-generated carbon emissions is a good thing. It makes sense not only for the average Joe or Jane to become more energy-efficient, but to take advantage of any reasonable technologies that can help make the transition to a more electricity-constrained future as painless as possible.

Just remember, the next time your utility company tells you what a great job it’s doing at saving energy, who’s footing the bill. When it comes to electricity, consumers today are paying both to use it … and to not use it.