The Northwest Industrial Strategic Energy Management Collaborative is a group of regional utilities, energy efficiency organizations and government agencies joined together to build on an existing framework of industrial strategic energy management (SEM) in the Northwest. The Collaborative builds on the simple idea that the region can do more to further industrial SEM together, than any single utility, organization or association can do on its own.
In mid-September, the Collaborative gathered in Portland, Ore., to discuss the state of the Collaborative, how to strengthen the SEM community and encourage participation, and review what progress the group has achieved.
The workshop brought together a large number of regional and national SEM players, ranging from organizations like BC Hydro, Bonneville Power Administration, Energy Trust of Oregon, Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE), Idaho Power, PacificCorp, Puget Sound Energy, Snohomish PUD and the U.S. Department of Energy Manufacturing Office to Cascade Energy, Ecova, EnerNoc, and Triple Point Energy.
Attendees dove into topics ranging from “moving the needle” against goals in its roadmap, early findings from CEE’s 2014 SEM member study, and how to develop effective market strategies to attract and better serve SEM customers. Attendees broke out into teams for a fun exercise to tailor their own set of outreach strategies for specific customer segments. They used using cereal boxes as the basis for their models, which generated some spirited discussion. Participants also discussed how to tackle some of the more prominent challenges to SEM adoption, such as enrolling new SEM customers, servicing current SEM customers long-term, advancing SEM Measurement and Verification (M&V) and how to measure the Collaborative’s market progress.
Next steps for the Collaborative will include a report-out in November to communicate successes and goals to ultimately help continue to guide energy-intensive industries in the Northwest in their efforts to achieve greater energy efficiency. Learn more about the Collaborative’s work, or view the presentations on Conduit.
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