ABBY WHITE

Director of Marketing Communications and Public Affairs, Efficiency Vermont 2017-2019

Vice President for Strategic Communications for VERMONT LAND TRUST

I was curious about why Abby’s company, Efficiency Vermont, calls itself a utility when it doesn’t actually deliver or generate energy. They help Vermonters reduce their energy use through rebates, incentives, and home improvements. In the state of Vermont, efficiency is valued with a dollar per kilowatt amount just like electricity delivery is.

As you might guess, Abby is an efficiency expert and outlines our bulk delivery system and the ever-important “peak.” Peak refers to the moment of highest energy use in a given year. For Vermont, this happens in the winter when everyone is heating their homes as well as in the summer when the air conditioning is blasting in every building. Abby explains how our bulk delivery system is inefficient because of this high peak, and if we can reduce our peak energy usage, we can reduce our reliance on dirty fossil fuel “peaker plants” that are fired up to account for the extra usage during the peak. Lowering the peak results in lowering electricity bills for every ratepayer on the grid, and thus, gives efficiency a monetary value.

“The human factor and getting people to take action, large and small, and then inspire their friends and their neighbors and their co-workers – that’s as important as the latest, greatest new technology.”

Abby has a theory on how to accomplish this: “I think the framing around climate change is most effective when we tap into the benefit and we tap into that joy and that sense of community, and move away from the guilt, move away from the here's what you're gonna have to give up or say goodbye to.”