California to plough $3.1bn into energy efficiency

The California Public Utilities Commission has earmarked more than $3bn (£1.9bn) for investment in energy efficiency programmes over the next three years, which it says is the biggest commitment ever made by a single state to energy efficiency measures.

The $3.1bn budget, which will be spent between 2010 and 2012, will be administered by investor-owned utilities Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas and Electric, San Diego Gas & Electric and the Southern California Gas Company.

This represents a 42 per cent increase over the prior three-year budget, and is designed to drive deeper efficiencies into the system than the utilities could ever achieve alone, the commission said.

The commission's Big, Bold Energy Efficiency Programmatic Initiatives include achieving zero net energy homes in the state as a standard practice by 2020, and zero net energy commercial buildings by 2030.

"Precisely because California and our utilities have been leaders in energy efficiency for over 30 years, our energy efficiency programmes can no longer rely primarily on inexpensive, easy to obtain energy efficiency but must pursue more challenging and costly implementation efforts," said the decision statement approving the budget, which the CPUC voted on last week.

Pacific Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison will get the bulk of the cash, managing $2.66bn between them.

Included in the budget is a statewide residential energy efficiency retrofitting programme, which the commission hopes will reduce energy consumption for up to 130,000 homes in the state by 20 per cent within three years.

A further $260m has been earmarked for public sector building retrofits, while $100m will be spent on training programmes for green jobs. Research and development projects focused on net zero energy building designs will receive an additional $175m.

The move is likely to anger republicans such as Meg Whitman, gubernatorial candidate for next year's election, who has already vowed to freeze many of the measures proposed in AB32, governor Schwarzenegger's wide-reaching climate change and energy efficiency legislation.

Made law three years ago, it has been hailed by green groups as central to the success of the state's burgeoning clean tech sector.