UD-22-04

The Council is considering changes to the Energy Smart energy efficiency and conservation program as well as potential Council policy with respect to demand-side management and customer-owned distributed energy resources and energy storage.

They are seeking to make the benefits of Energy Smart more accessible to ratepayers and to accelerate the adoption and deployment of energy-saving technologies, including solar and battery storage systems.​

The Alliance’s Thoughts

The Alliance filed formal comments in the docket which focus on the poor performance of Energy Smart among income-qualified ratepayers, who also often bear the highest energy burdens in New Orleans.

The Alliance proposed the adoption of a standard whereby 15% of total energy savings should accrue to income-qualified households in programs specifically designed for them, such as the income-qualified weatherization program. As we noted in our comments, income-qualified households are paying for a greater share of the residential program budgets than is expended on programs intended to serve them. These households, despite making up 35% of the households served by ENO, received a just an 8% share of the residential savings from PY13 to PY15.

Households most in need of programs to reduce their bills should receive more attention and dollars in programs intended to reduce bills. Simple as that. ​