Alliance to Save Energy


The Alliance to Save Energy is a coalition consisting largely of industrial, technological, and energy corporations. The Alliance states that its mission is to "support energy efficiency as a cost-effective energy resource under existing market conditions and advocate energy-efficiency policies that minimize costs to society and individual consumers, and that lessen greenhouse gas emissions and their impact on the global climate." The alliance's chief activities include public relations, research, and lobbying to change U.S. energy policy.
The creation of the Alliance was announced on February 10, 1977, with the support of the then U.S. President Jimmy Carter. It was the initiative of senators Charles Percy and Hubert Humphrey.

Member organizations

The alliance includes over 170 organizations committed to energy efficiency as a primary way to achieve the nation's environmental, economic, energy security and affordable housing goals.

Support of Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007

In 2007, Alliance to Save Energy came out in support of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which phases out the use of inefficient forms of incandescent light bulbs in favor of more energy-efficient lights, such as CFL, halogen incandescents, and LED lights. The purchase price of more efficient lights is typically higher than the purchase price of legacy incandescents. However, the low energy consumption and long life span of high-efficiency lights result in lower life-cycle costs than their legacy incandescent counterparts. Several of the founding member corporations are manufacturers of high-efficiency bulbs. However, all of these corporations are also manufacturers of the incandescent light bulbs that were phased out of production following passage of the Clean Energy Bill of 2007.

CarbonCount

CarbonCount is a metric developed by the Alliance to Save Energy that quantifies the impact of investments in U.S.-based energy-efficiency and renewable-energy projects given the expected reduction in carbon dioxide emissions resulting from each $1,000 of investment. In 2015, Bloomberg New Energy Finance honored CarbonCount with its Finance for Resilience award. FiRE is an open and action-oriented platform that collects, develops and helps implement powerful ideas to accelerate finance for clean energy, climate, sustainability and green growth. FiRe singles out ideas that have the potential for incremental finance of at least $1bn in clean energy in the first three years of implementation, that are achievable within 1–3 years. Hannon Armstrong's 2015 issuance of Sustainable Yield Bonds secured by a portion of its utility scale solar and wind real estate related assets was the first investment to be certified under the CarbonCount methodology, receiving a CarbonCount score of 0.39 metric tons of CO2 offset per $1000 of investment. In 2016, Deutsche Bank received a CarbonCount score of 0.18 metric tons of CO2 offset per $1000 of investment in a portfolio of rooftop solar PV systems.

Legislation

The Alliance to Save Energy supported the bill To require the Secretary of Energy to prepare a report on the impact of thermal insulation on both energy and water use for potable hot water, which would require the United States Secretary of Energy to prepare a report on the effects that thermal insulation has on both energy consumption and systems for providing potable water in :Category:Buildings of the United States government|federal buildings. They called the bill a step "in the right direction" and saying that they "are hopeful energy efficiency can once again be an area of common ground between parties."
They supported the EPS Service Parts Act of 2014, a bill that would exempt certain external power supplies from complying with standards set forth in a final rule published by the United States Department of Energy in February 2014. The United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce describes the bill as a bill that "provides regulatory relief by making a simple technical correction to the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act to exempt certain power supply service and spare parts from federal efficiency standards."

Board of directors

The board includes CEOs, presidents and senior executives of companies, associations, consumer and environmental organizations, as well as officials from state government, universities and law firms.
The first board of directors and board of advisors were chaired by Senator Percy and Henry A. Kissinger, respectively. Honorary chairmen included Senators Daniel J. Evans, H. John Heinz III and Timothy E. Wirth.
The current board is chaired by Senator Mark Warner and co-chaired by Tom King, President of National Grid USA. Congressional vice-chairs include Senators Jeff Bingaman, Susan M. Collins, Chris Coons, Richard Lugar, Lisa Murkowski, Rob Portman, Mark Pryor, Jeanne Shaheen, Mark Udall. Congressional vice chairs also include Representatives Brian Bilbray, Michael Burgess, Ralph Hall, Steve Israel, Edward J. Markey, and Paul Tonko. Alliance President Kateri Callahan took office on January 1, 2004.