The move toward electric industry restructuring in the latter half of the 1990s ushered in a new era of utility sector energy efficiency policy mechanisms, broadly categorized as "public benefits" (a.k.a. "systems benefits") funds. In 1999, ACEEE conducted the first national review of these public benefits energy efficiency programs, which had been adopted in nearly 20 states. This resulted in the publication in 2000 of a two-volume set of reports (A Review and Early Assessment of Public Benefit Policies under Electric Restructuring. Volume 1: A State-By-State Catalog of Policies and Actions (Kushler and Witte 2000a) and Volume 2: A Summary of Key Features, Stakeholder Reactions, and Lessons Learned to Date) (Kushler and Witte 2000b).

The purpose of this current study is to provide a follow-up national examination of public benefits energy efficiency policies and programs, now that these approaches have been in operation for a fair amount of time (5 years or more in many cases).

For this project we re-contacted all of the 25 states (plus the District of Columbia) examined in the original project, and gathered all pertinent information (e.g., annual reports, regulatory orders, legislation, etc.) to assess the results of the public benefits programs as well as document and describe any changes that had occurred in the public benefits policies or administrative approaches during that time. We also did follow-up telephone interviews with key stakeholders in each state (e.g., utilities, state government personnel, and advocacy groups) to obtain their qualitative assessments of the public benefits energy efficiency approach in their states.

Of the 26 jurisdictions examined in this project (25 states plus D.C.), 20 have included policies that either require or encourage public benefits energy efficiency programs in their legislation and/or regulatory orders, and 18 of those states currently have such energy efficiency programs in operation (Arizona, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, and Wisconsin).

The policies, administrative approaches, and reported results from each of those states are provided in detailed state-by-state profiles in Appendix C. The main body of this report provides a synthesis and overall summary of that detailed state-level information. Some of the highlight results of this study are provided below.

Main report only: 43 pp. plus summary table, 2004, $30.00, U041

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Main report & summary table plus 162 pp. appendices, 2004, $65.00, U042

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