Charged with creating and managing regional market transformation efforts around energy-efficiency, the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEEA) is redirecting its funding in an attempt to better meet its key business plan goals.

At its October board meeting, the board’s Portfolio Committee recommended that NEEA cut four programs that collectively represent about $1 million of NEEA’s annual budget, according to executive director Margie Gardner. The committee proposed discontinuing four programs: Agrimet, Energy Ideas Clearinghouse, nwcurrent.com, and local government associations. The board approved the Portfolio Committee’s recommendations to discontinue funding three of the four programs.

“These general initiatives did not support NEEA’s business plan goals directly,” Gardner says. “We think the contractors have been providing very good services. The deliverables are of fine quality. But we think our money would be better used on products that deliver directly to our energy efficiency goals.”

The board voted to continue funding Energy Ideas Clearinghouse, which provides technical assistance to businesses, government and utilities around energy technologies. NEEA gives the program about $500,000 a year. The board has not decided how much money it plans to allocate to Energy Ideas when its current contract expires April 30, 2008, according to Gardner.

Agrimet, a satellite-based network of agricultural weather stations located in irrigated agricultural areas throughout the Pacific Northwest, received about $60,000 annually from NEEA. The network, which monitors regional crop water use, frost, and integrated pest and fertility management, was begun in 1983 by Bonneville Power Administration and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and continues to be managed by the bureau.

“It certainly is unfortunate for us,” says Diana Cross, spokesperson for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, in regards to NEEA's decision. “Their support has been very valuable over the years.”

NEEA’s annual contribution to Agrimet covers about one-third of its budget, Cross says. The network also receives funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural (USDA) Resource Service, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, land grant universities, the Cooperative Extension System, electric utilities, power companies and other public and private agencies and organizations.

Much of Agrimet’s initial costs went toward installing equipment, but now that most of the equipment is in place, the program needs funding to help maintain the network, Cross says. “We feel that Agrimet is an important conservation tool,” she says. “It’s very widely used in the Northwest. It does save energy and it does save water and helps everyone do a better job at managing the water supply.”

NEEA’s funding for nwcurrent, the region’s monthly clean energy news service published by Celilo Group Media, expires in January 2008. The newsletter, which is published online and emailed to more than 2,800 subscribers monthly, covers renewable energy, energy-efficiency and market transformation, includes interviews with regional energy professionals, and posts regional clean energy events. NEEA provides complete funding for nwcurrent.

"The energy providers and managers of the Northwest have said clearly that energy-efficiency measures and renewable energy generation are the top ways that utilities in the region will meet future energy demand,” says Nik Blosser, president of Celilo Group Media. He adds that access to timely, credible news and information on clean energy, such as that provided by nwcurrent, is key for helping regional energy professionals plan for meeting future energy needs.  “So if NEEA is not going to fund this kind of critical communication system, I hope another entity will step up quickly.”

The last edition of nwcurrent is scheduled to go out to readers Dec.18 2007. Blosser notes that if alternate funding is not secured by the end of the year, nwcurrent and all of the articles on the site, resources and news will go dark on January 31, 2008.

Like nwcurrent, Energy Ideas Clearinghouse cannot prove that the information and expertise it provides around energy efficiency directly results in kilowatt hours saved.

Founded in 1990, the organization is managed by the Washington State University Extension Energy Program in Olympia, Wash. NEEA provides 100 percent of its funding, says Energy Ideas' program director Linda Witham. The program offers a telephone hotline that serves Northwest energy professionals with information on products, programs and technologies available to them. Witham says the hotline receives about 750 calls annually.

EnergyIdeas.org was launched in 1998 to provide information on energy conservation and regional news to a larger audience. The site receives about 100,000 visitors a year, according to Witham. Some argue the Internet provides a wealth of information around energy-efficient technologies and practices. Witham notes that her staff digs through all the information that's out there, analyzes it, summarizes it and delivers it in an easy to digest way. 

"With Energy Ideas Clearinghouse, it was the specific, technical information that the utilities are finding most helpful," Gardner says.
The NEEA board is focusing much of its current energy defining its goals for the period 2010 to 2014, according to Gardner [see “Current Power Broker: Margie Gardner,” nwcurrent, September 2007].

The board focused much of its efforts at its October board meeting nailing down the details of a new structure for the board. It voted to reduce the size of the NEEA board from 30 representatives to 14. The smaller board would focus on policy and strategic direction for NEEA. It will be supported by a number of "expert committees" that will advise the board and NEEA staff on specific areas or initiatives. The smaller board will include eight seats for NEEA’s largest funding organizations, three seats for other funders, two seats appointed by state governor’s offices and one at-large seat.