2019 Annual Report

Letter to the Region

The Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEEA) was founded in 1997 on a new and promising notion – that by working together to identify and remove market barriers throughout the supply chain, the region could achieve permanent gains in energy efficiency. Twenty-three years later, market transformation is recognized across the country as a powerful tool for delivering energy efficiency and the alliance as its most experienced purveyor.

2019 marked the last year of NEEA’s 5-year (2015-2019) Business Plan. During this business cycle – by pooling resources, creating economies of scale and leveraging the market power of the region – the alliance successfully completed its Cycle 5 Business Plan.

Increasing Economic Resilience

Energy efficiency is an economic driver in our region and is important now more than ever. Energy efficiency saves money, creates family-waged jobs, and is the cornerstone of a low-carbon economic development strategy. Those who work in Oregon’s energy efficiency industry are critical to ensuring we have an affordable and resilient energy system that is robust for our future. Thank you to the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance for its leadership in advancing energy efficiency in Oregon and across the Northwest.

- Kate Brown, Governor of Oregon

Program Highlight

A Previous Investment Delivers Returns for the Region:

Helping customers manage their energy use is a critical role that Northwest utilities and efficiency organizations play. From 2005-2015, the alliance pioneered Strategic Energy Management (SEM) in the Northwest through its Continuing Energy Improvement (CEI) program. CEI brought common “plan, do, check, act” goal setting principles and other industrial processes into the realm of energy management. Energy Trust of Oregon and Bonneville Power Administration were early participants in CEI pilots, renamed SEM in 2009.

As utility programs grew across the Northwest, NEEA began winding down its SEM market engagement. In NEEA’s 2015-2019 Business Plan, SEM became an infrastructure program, focused entirely on providing support for utility programs and the market through training, tools and resources. With a solid regional foundation and utilities leading the way, SEM programs continued to spread across the region in Cycle 5. Between 2017-2019, the number of industrial facilities participating in utility SEM programs almost doubled across the Northwest while commercial participants more than tripled. In total, Northwest SEM programs saved enough energy between 2015-2019 to power more than 20,000 Northwest homes each year. These savings would not have been possible without alliance investments made more than a decade ago and showcase the real power of Market Transformation.

Cycle 5 (2015-2019)

Co-Created Energy Savings

Between 2015-2019, alliance activities delivered 219 average megawatts (aMW) of Co-Created energy savings, enough energy to power nearly 160,000 Northwest homes each year.

For more details, view NEEA's presentation to the Cost-Effectiveness Advisory Committee.

Co-Created - or shared - energy savings include all savings above the baseline that occur in the market due to the combined efforts of NEEA and its partners.

1 aMW = enough energy to power about 730 Northwest homes per year

NEEA estimates that the alliance delivered 42 average megawatts (aMW) of Co-Created energy savings in 2019 exceeding its goal of 28 aMW by 50 percent. Over half of those savings are the result of investments made during previous business cycles.