Ben Stacey’s scientific contributions

OVERVIEW State Energy Efficiency Resource Standards (EERS) have emerged across the United States, becoming prevalent in the early 2000's. EERS policies are state laws that require utilities to pursue energy efficiency as a cost-effective energy resource. As a result, billions of dollars have been invested in improving residential energy efficiency. The expressed goals of EERS policies include providing consumers direct economic savings by reducing wasted energy, and indirectly through avoided costs of constructing additional power plants. In 2016 alone, twenty nine EERS states invested $2.5 billion in energy efficiency programs. While utilities regularly surpass annual energy savings goals required by EERS laws, the distribution of program benefits across subpopulations remains a concern for many stakeholders and energy justice advocates. This study takes a novel approach to examining EERS investments through an energy justice lens, taking the first step to assess distributional justice of residential program investments across socioeconomic groups: low-income (or income-qualified) and non-low-income residents. To accomplish this, we develop a comparison metric, known as the Energy Efficiency Equity baseline (E3b), which estimates equitable utility investment proportionate to the low-income population in the service territory and as a percentage of the total residential energy efficiency investment portfolio. This study captures$5.6 billion of spending by eleven Investor-Owned-Utilities (IOUs) from 2012-2021, located in six EERS states: Connecticut, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Minnesota. The study reveals various distribu-tional disparities in low-income investments and investment trends among utilities, with most underperforming relative to the E3b. However, recent trends suggest improvement by large utilities. Policy revisions, stakeholder intervention, and utility decision-making is beginning to shift this trend.

State policies providing residential energy efficiency programs have emerged over the past decade with the goal of producing widespread economic and environmental benefits. While these policies have largely achieved and surpassed legislated objectives, the degree to which program benefits are distributed amongst population subgroups, particularly low-income residents, remains unclear. On average in the United States, low-income households are less energy efficient contributing towards 1 in 3 of these homes struggle to afford energy, and 1 in 5 facing decisions between energy use and other necessities such as food or medicine. Energy efficiency programs however, may offer a critical avenue in alleviating energy poverty. This study focuses on measuring the social equity achieved through Michigan's "Energy Waste Reduction" programs for the state's two major investor-owned utilities (IOUs). The study establishes a novel, quantitatively sensitive measure, called the Energy Efficiency Equitable baseline (E3b). This measure is used to identify disparities that occur in policy decision-making and outcomes. Particularly, the study quantifies disparities in program investments and household energy savings on a per capita basis between low and high-income residential groups. E3b reveals trends in policy outcomes from a social perspective, illustrating high variability in social equity between energy type and providers. Broad patterns showed that gas program investments approached equitable levels, however, electric Low-Income program investments fall well below the E3b. Household energy savings also demonstrated substantial disparities, where per capita ratios reached up to 22:1 when comparing high to low-income program benefits. As states aim to transition towards clean and affordable energy, social equity must be quantitatively evaluated to prevent discriminatory impact on vulnerable populations.