The recent and ongoing economic downturn has posed a significant challenge toindustrial energy efficiency resource acquisition programs. The goals of these utility ratepayerfundedprograms have been growing significantly in recent years as public utility commissionsand others choose to acquire efficiency resources instead of building new generation to meetfuture load. The programs designed to provide these verifiable efficiency savings are often basedupon a model that relies upon capital investment from industrial sites: the programs assistindustrial sites in identifying energy-saving equipment, provide financial assistance for theequipment purchase, and then claim the associated energy savings when the installation iscomplete. In a capital-constrained economic environment, however, industrial sites are lesswilling to make large capital investments and efficiency programs suffer the consequences.Despite this, just as a properly balanced investment portfolio can better weather changes in theeconomic climate, industrial efficiency programs can diversify their sources of savings tomaintain success in periods of low capital investment.This paper will discuss how The Energy Trust of Oregon’s industrial efficiency programwas able to maintain successful results throughout the economic downturn. In addition to largecapital projects, the program achieved savings from a variety of sources requiring little or nocapital investment. The program saw an increase in prescriptive and smaller, vendor-drivenprojects that did not require as large of a capital investment. Technical field staff worked withsites to identify operations and maintenance changes that would result in energy savings thatwould endure. Finally, by engaging sites in strategic energy management practices, sites wereable to reduce their energy use and energy intensity often with little or no investment beyond thestaff time spent training and implementing energy management practices.
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