Negawatt resource frontiers: Extracting energy efficiency from private spaces

Abstract

Energy saved through efficiency and conservation efforts is often framed as a “resource” in climate change mitigation policies because of the ways such “negawatts” can cost-effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This research uses a case study of a US state alternative energy portfolio standard under which negawatts have been turned into new sources of profits for investor-owned electricity companies. Using archival policymaking data and analytical tools commonly used in the study of more traditional subsurface resources like fossil fuels, this paper analyzes how such companies have come to profit from negawatts. I show that, under this portfolio standard, negawatts are largely embedded in electricity customers’ private spaces, presenting a private property problem for capital accumulation similar to the challenge faced by capital seeking to extract more traditional subsurface resources. I argue that electricity companies resolve the negawatt private property problem in two ways. First, they discursively move negawatts out of private spaces through comparisons with resources like oil and gas. Second, the portfolio standard itself can be seen as granting electricity companies an enhanced spatial monopoly on negawatt extraction that functions like a mining concession. These discourses and regulations create a new and growing resource frontier which is likely to be a key accumulation space in the low-carbon economy. I conclude with recommendations for a more socially just and “deeper” politics of energy efficiency extraction.

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