Companies look to PECI for energy savings

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PECI's Phil Welker

In 1979, "energy efficiency" was a barely defined concept.

There were no standards for designing efficient buildings, building them, or measuring just how much of a difference those efforts had made.

But following the Iranian Revolution-spurred energy crisis, federal leaders decided it was time to get more efficient. So, to qualify for federal grants, city government officials launched Portland Energy Conservation Inc.

Before long, the nonprofit disengaged from city oversight and began branching out beyond the world of low-income weatherization programs.

Over the past three decades, it has helped shape an increasingly complex field. Its engineers created standards for the design of energy-efficient buildings, then created protocol for making sure contractors followed the standards. It negotiated with light-bulb and washing-machine manufacturers to bring more efficient products to the market. And it has built up an army of consultants to help businesses revamp how they use power.

With 310 employees working across five states, Portland Energy Conservation Inc. Executive Director Phil Welker prefers to call his nonprofit "PECI." The "Portland" just doesn’t tell the whole story any more.

Since the energy crisis of 2000 and 2001, energy efficiency efforts have gained cachet every passing year. PECI’s annual revenue is now 10 times what it was just nine years ago.

However, the makeup of the region’s work force may ultimately limit how much the nonprofit and other energy efficiency promoters can achieve.

Mechanical engineers, for instance, are a crucial component of PECI’s consulting team.

"There’s a shortage of mechanical engineers around," Welker said. "A lot of the folks that are in the field are baby boomers and they’re going to retire soon. When we look at growing PECI, or scaling up the industry, it’s a little scary."

Though founded to take advantage of government grants, today’s PECI derives nearly all of its $29 million in annual revenue from service fees — primarily paid by electricity vendors.

As the region’s population grows, these utilities have two choices: develop new sources of power, which will push up the cost of electricity for all of their customers, or boost efficiency, so that demand for power goes down.

Often, they outsource those efficiency efforts.

For example, the Bonneville Power Administration and Pacific Gas & Electric paid PECI $5.3 million in 2008 to administer the Energy Smart program in the Northwest and California.

Through the program, PECI audits grocery and convenience store power use, then helps these businesses make energy-saving equipment upgrades. Upgrades made in 2008 alone saved 130.2 million kilowatt hours of electricity. That’s the equivalent of getting 14,000 households to quit using electricity altogether for a year.

Haggen Inc., the Bellingham, Wash.-based grocery chain, invited PECI to audit 24 of its Oregon and Washington stores. The review prompted Haggen to make multiple upgrades, primarily to its refrigeration systems.

PECI’s Energy Smart analysts saw the project through to completion, making sure the work got done, said Glen Foresman, the chain’s director of retail support and administration.

From 2007 to 2008, Haggen cut its energy bill by $300,000.

"How can you beat that?" Foresman said.