Government supporting local communities

The government could help to promote energy efficiency with a number of different policies that support innovation from local communities and utilities. The government could offer, for example, incentives and low-cost loans that can be distributed through local utility companies for retrofitting current structures and applying higher efficiency standards in new construction. Decisions as to the best methods of efficiency are most effective at the local level with attention to geography, availability, and distribution of resources. Capital constraints previously preventing individuals and industry from taking advantage of advanced methods of energy efficiency may be alleviated with access to low-cost loans guaranteed by the government. Although one argument may be that the recovery time is too lengthy to realize any individual benefit of such upgrades, this may be handled by incentivizing the utility to provide the immediate cost benefit recouping its cost over time. Additionally, the government should expand its efforts to ensure easy access to all available energy usage and technology data is accessible.

In order to move this idea forward, I would create a business that will wade through the myriad of tax, regulations, and technology choices and provide a turn-key solution. The business would determine the best efficiency solutions for local industry and individuals while working with local utilities and the community ensuring a holistic approach. This type of business would receive funding through a variety of government (or other more creative) sources and would use all available programs to offset individual investment for provided solutions, where feasible. If the brunt of the capital cost is handled outside of direct investment by individuals, there is a greater chance of acceptance and this is when real progress may be made.

3 thoughts on “Government supporting local communities

  1. Hi Jennifer! Thanks for posting to my blog. It seems we had a similar idea for a business opportunity. If you haven’t had a chance, you should check out my post in the discussion forum for this lesson about RealWinWin, a company that I worked for once that basically handles the processing of energy efficiency rebate paperwork for large companies like Walgreens and Starbucks. Their business model is strictly related to commercial enterprises and deals only with the administrative side of these rebates, in addition to providing engineering and planning assistance. I think we both see the opportunity for a business to provide more comprehensive energy efficiency upgrade services to both individuals and businesses, or as you put it, a “turn key” solution. Clearly there is a market here!

    http://engr312.dutton.psu.edu/2014/09/17/energy-efficiency-policy-and-implementation/

  2. Hi Bret,

    Thank you for taking the time to read my post and share your thoughts as well. I completely agree with your post about cooperation between the government, businesses, and individuals being so critical to the implementation of such policies. Bringing the regulation and monitoring of these projects back to a local level would help to ensure we are implementing policies that work for that locale or region and we do not try to fit everything into a neat little box.

    Jennifer

  3. Hi Jennifer,
    I too believe that putting the power of decisions to local communities on energy efficiency would be a great idea. Each geographic region in the United States is different and policies that relate to energy efficiency of the federal level would not be effective. I like how you have come up with the idea of giving government subsidized loans through local utilities to update structures for energy efficiency. On a local scale I think that that would be more effective. I did not think of this while I wrote my post, but if you are interested I have included the link below.
    – Bret
    http://engr312.dutton.psu.edu/2014/09/16/lesson-3-energy-efficiency-cole/

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