{"id":42238,"date":"2025-01-23T11:35:16","date_gmt":"2025-01-23T17:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/?p=42238"},"modified":"2025-01-23T11:35:16","modified_gmt":"2025-01-23T17:35:16","slug":"illinois-future-of-gas-geothermal-energy-meeting-december-16-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/blog\/2025\/01\/23\/illinois-future-of-gas-geothermal-energy-meeting-december-16-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Illinois Future of Gas: Geothermal Energy Meeting – December 16, 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

By: Scott Allen, Energy Policy Specialist<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The final Future of Gas workshop of 2024 was possibly the most optimistic one to date.\u00a0 The theme of this workshop was geothermal energy and thermal energy networks (or, TENs) Geothermal energy and energy networks are both interesting and practical, and, as we heard from the many case studies presented at this workshop, they work. As usual, I encourage all of you to <\/span>watch the video replay, and check out the slides from Salas O’Brien and The Accelerate Group<\/a><\/strong> from the Dec. 16 workshop.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, I\u2019m not going to discuss either of those presentations here.\u00a0 By now I\u2019ve probably talked enough about how well geothermal energy and heat pump technology works, but haven\u2019t yet explored what it is that gas and electric utilities hope to accomplish in this proceeding. So that\u2019s my subject for today.\u00a0 Specifically, I want to address a report from MidAmerican Energy on the efficacy of its gas and electric efficiency programs, and the predictable failure of its customer electrification experiment.<\/span><\/p>\n

MidAmerican doesn\u2019t get a lot of attention in Illinois – most of that attention goes to ComEd and Ameren – but they should not escape scrutiny just because their service territory is relatively small. MidAmerican is an Iowa-based, investor-owned gas and electric utility that serves a good portion of the Quad Cities.\u00a0 It is a particularly dirty utility, owning several coal plants and thousands of miles of gas pipelines, so there\u2019s a lot of atonement needing to be made.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At this point in the Future of Gas proceedings all of the gas utilities have reported on the status of their energy efficiency programs. By and large they all believe that their programs have performed well enough, acknowledging (without anybody having asked) that there is room for improvement, which they are working on. This translates to: \u201cThe status quo is fine. We\u2019re already decarbonizing our systems to an acceptable degree\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not trying\u00a0 to downplay the importance of energy efficiency. Improving a building\u2019s envelope is the most cost-effective way to reduce energy bills and building-related emissions. Using more gas-efficient appliances is obviously better than using less efficient appliances\u2013but neither of these is a substitute for phasing out gas. It\u2019s also important to keep in mind that the practice of energy efficiency is not synonymous with an energy efficiency program.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In my first blog I cited the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy\u2019s definition of energy efficiency:\u00a0 \u201cUse of technology, systems or behaviors to accomplish the same task with less energy.\u201d\u00a0 Programs on the other hand are offerings from gas and electric utilities that try to incentivize the people to practice energy efficiency. These programs are severely limited in their usefulness in two ways:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. They are difficult to access<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. They provide very few benefits to renters, which is a significant problem since homeownership is a near-impossibility for youth and lower-income consumers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    According to <\/span>the Census Bureau<\/a><\/strong>, about a third of Illinoisans rent their homes. But in Chicago (where rent burden is highest) <\/span>DePaul’s Institute for Housing Studies<\/a><\/strong> reports that roughly 54 percent of residents are renters. All of this is to say that energy efficiency programs are only useful if they are implemented and are most helpful to people who can least afford their energy bills.\u00a0 In Illinois we have not yet figured out how to achieve both of those goals very effectively, and\u00a0 we\u2019ve seen several attempts fail.\u00a0 MidAmerican\u2019s report of program statistics and its electrification project illustrate what I mean.<\/span><\/p>\n

    In this workshop, MidAmerican reported that in five program years, 2019 to 2023, it spent nearly $22 million on gas and electric efficiency programs, but only managed to save about 75 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity and just under 2 million therms of gas.\u00a0 For the next five program years, the utioling intends to spend about $36 million in an effort to save about 92 million kilowatt hours and 1.7 million therms. Since the company did not tell us how much of that spending went to each of the efficiency programs, it\u2019s difficult to quantify inefficiencies, but I think that was the point of not being too specific in the presentation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    One could argue that any amount of money spent on gas efficiency is worth it if that spend results in less gas extracted, piped and consumed. Another could argue that rather than spending money on efficiency programs (which don\u2019t tend to effectively serve customers who need it most) it would be better spent on paying for people to electrify their homes\/buildings. I fall into the latter group, but, as evidenced by the next report MidAmerican gave, I\u2019m not convinced that MidAmerican (or any gas utility) should be relied on to implement those home conversions.<\/span><\/p>\n

    For the last four months of 2024, MidAmerican attempted an electrification project for a neighborhood in Rock Island. The goal of the program was to \u201cimprove energy efficiency and reduce energy burden for customers in [the] lowest income area in our Illinois service territory.\u201d\u00a0 For any residential customer in that neighborhood, MidAmerican was offering a free energy audit, and these free products (and installation): LEDs, pipe insulation, attic insulation and sealing, a smart thermostat, as well as the offer to cover 90 percent of the cost of new HVAC equipment.\u00a0 They hoped to conduct 30 energy audits (they did 21) and install 200 thermostats (they installed about 90.)\u00a0 I encourage the reader to <\/span>examine the results of this initiative<\/a><\/strong> themselves, but for those who don\u2019t, I\u2019ll tell you that out of 57 prospective participants in the energy audit\/insulation\/HVAC replacement part of this project, four projects were confirmed (not completed).\u00a0 On the thermostat side, MidAmerican mailed, marketed or spoke to about 4,000 households, but installed only about 90 thermostats.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Maybe you\u2019re asking yourself, \u201cWhat\u2019s the problem with any of this, Scott?\u00a0 What point are you trying to make?\u201d Here\u2019s my point, and again, I\u2019d ask you to review the program details for yourself: MidAmerican spent untold amounts of money (they\u00a0 didn\u2019t say how much) in order to install 90 thermostats and \u201cconfirm\u201d four assessment and replacement projects. Furthermore, they didn\u2019t install a single heat pump, but they did replace at least one gas furnace with another gas furnace, which is convenient for MidAmerican.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Maybe it\u2019s not all bad though. The MidAmerican representative did tell us that they learned a valuable lesson:\u00a0 poor people can\u2019t afford to prepare their homes for 21st century technology, nor do they tend to trust the gas company when it comes knocking on the door offering free stuff. Looking at the results from another angle, maybe this did work out in MidAmerican\u2019s favor: They found that it\u2019s too expensive to electrify homes, so their preferred pathway to decarbonizing their gas system is to not decarbonize the gas system, and instead chase ever-shrinking margins for gas efficiency programs.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    It\u2019s hard to say how reports such as these are perceived by the people who attend the workshops. I imagine that many participants see a lot of room for improvement. Afterall, we know that energy efficiency works, and since gas is going to be around for a while, why not try to get more from less? What doesn\u2019t quite add up for me, though, is that for the hundreds of millions of dollars spent over the last decade or more, building emissions still account for an ever-increasing amount of pollution, and the cost to consumers has doubled. At what point do we put an end to all of this waste, public harm and financial burden?<\/span><\/p>\n

    What\u2019s Next?<\/strong><\/p>\n

    The next meeting is January 13 on Alternative Gases. Check out our ICC Future of Gas page for more information.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

    Scott Allen,<\/strong>\u00a0Energy Policy Specialist (he\/him\/his) \u2014 Scott joined CUB in February 2014 as the first downstate staff member, working first out of Hillsboro, then from Springfield, and now, Urbana. He focuses on outreach to Ameren customers and building relationships with downstate agencies and organizations. Scott also represents CUB at the downstate caucus of the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition and works on a range of energy and consumer-related legislative initiatives. His favorite aspect of working at CUB is not having to worry about whether or not his efforts have a negative impact on society.\u00a0 In his time off, Scott enjoys napping, exercising and eating.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By: Scott Allen, Energy Policy Specialist The final Future of Gas workshop of 2024 was possibly the most optimistic one to date.\u00a0 The theme of this workshop was geothermal energy and thermal energy networks (or, TENs) Geothermal energy and energy networks are both interesting and practical, and, as we heard from the many case studies presented at this workshop, they work. As usual, I encourage all of you to watch the video replay, and check out the slides from Salas O’Brien and The Accelerate Group from the Dec. 16 workshop.\u00a0 However, I\u2019m not going to discuss either of those presentations here.\u00a0 By now I\u2019ve probably talked enough about how well geothermal energy and heat pump technology works, but haven\u2019t yet explored what it is that gas and electric utilities hope to accomplish in this proceeding. So that\u2019s my subject for today.\u00a0 Specifically, I want to address a report from MidAmerican Energy on the efficacy of its gas and electric efficiency programs, and the predictable failure of its customer electrification experiment. MidAmerican doesn\u2019t get a lot of attention in Illinois – most of that attention goes to ComEd and Ameren – but they should not escape scrutiny just because their service territory is relatively small. MidAmerican is an Iowa-based, investor-owned gas and electric utility that serves a good portion of the Quad Cities.\u00a0 It is a particularly dirty utility, owning several coal plants and thousands of miles of gas pipelines, so there\u2019s a lot of atonement needing to be made.\u00a0\u00a0 At this point in the Future of Gas proceedings all of the gas utilities have reported on the status of their energy efficiency programs. By and large they all believe that their programs have performed well enough, acknowledging (without anybody having asked) that there is room for improvement, which they are working on. This translates to: \u201cThe status quo is fine. We\u2019re already decarbonizing our systems to an acceptable degree\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019m not trying\u00a0 to downplay the importance of energy efficiency. Improving a building\u2019s envelope is the most cost-effective way to reduce energy bills and building-related emissions. Using more gas-efficient appliances is obviously better than using less efficient appliances\u2013but neither of these is a substitute for phasing out gas. It\u2019s also important to keep in mind that the practice of energy efficiency is not synonymous with an energy efficiency program.\u00a0 In my first blog I cited the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy\u2019s definition of energy efficiency:\u00a0 \u201cUse of technology, systems or behaviors to accomplish the same task with less energy.\u201d\u00a0 Programs on the other hand are offerings from gas and electric utilities that try to incentivize the people to practice energy efficiency. These programs are severely limited in their usefulness in two ways:\u00a0 They are difficult to access They provide very few benefits to renters, which is a significant problem since homeownership is a near-impossibility for youth and lower-income consumers.\u00a0\u00a0 According to the Census Bureau, about a third of Illinoisans rent their homes. But in Chicago (where rent burden is highest) DePaul’s Institute for Housing Studies reports that roughly 54 percent of residents are renters. All of this is to say […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":null,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"default","_twitter_share_type":"default","_linkedin_share_type":"default","_pinterest_share_type":"default","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"default","_medium_share_type":"default","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[1752],"tags":[1765,1180,1575],"class_list":["post-42238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-icc-future-of-gas","tag-geothermal","tag-midamerican","tag-renters"],"cp_meta_data":{"_facebook_share_type":["default"],"_twitter_share_type":["default"],"_linkedin_share_type":["default"],"_pinterest_share_type":["default"],"_instagram_share_type":["default"],"_medium_share_type":["default"],"classic-editor-remember":["classic-editor"],"_edit_lock":["1738371999:5"],"_edit_last":["25"],"_wp_page_template":["default"],"borntogive_page_header_show_hide":["2"],"borntogive_pages_title_show":["1"],"borntogive_pages_Choose_slider_display":["2"],"borntogive_pages_select_revolution_from_list":["3"],"borntogive_pages_slider_pagination":["yes"],"borntogive_pages_slider_auto_slide":["yes"],"borntogive_pages_slider_direction_arrows":["yes"],"borntogive_pages_slider_effects":["fade"],"borntogive_pages_body_bg_wide":["0"],"borntogive_pages_body_bg_repeat":["repeat"],"borntogive_pages_content_bg_wide":["0"],"borntogive_pages_content_bg_repeat":["repeat"],"borntogive_pages_social_show":["1"],"borntogive_strict_no_sidebar":["0"],"borntogive_sidebar_columns_layout":["3"],"borntogive_gallery_slider_pagination":["yes"],"borntogive_gallery_slider_auto_slide":["yes"],"borntogive_gallery_slider_direction_arrows":["yes"],"borntogive_gallery_slider_effects":["fade"],"_wpb_vc_js_status":["false"],"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":[""],"_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":["off"],"_wpsp_is_facebook_share":["off"],"_wpsp_is_twitter_share":["off"],"_wpsp_is_linkedin_share":["off"],"_wpsp_is_pinterest_share":["off"],"_selected_social_profile":["a:0:{}"],"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":["1752"],"_yoast_wpseo_content_score":["30"],"_yoast_wpseo_estimated-reading-time-minutes":["7"]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42240,"href":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42238\/revisions\/42240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}