Teaching Customers to Value Energy Efficiency: A Comparison of CFL Fund Raisers

In the past, many electric utilities have relied on more traditional approaches to promote CFLs to communities, usually through light bulb giveaways. But this approach dilutes the value of both the product and the message since customers have nothing invested in energy efficiency. This paper compares the evaluation results for CFL Fund Raisers conducted in Colorado and Florida, targeting both rural electric and municipal utilities. These utilities viewed this program as a way to: • Serve as a fund raising opportunity for local non profit groups, • Provide educational benefits to residential customers, and • Reduce demand and energy use by promoting the replacement of the five most used lights in a typical customer’s home. This paper also documents program savings to date in: • Kilowatt hour reductions, • Kilowatt savings during peak demands, and • Carbon emission reductions. This paper shows that this model is an effective way for energy organizations to promote energy efficiency improvements, such as CFLs, without subsidies. The light bulb fundraiser model also demonstrates that residential customers will pay the full retail cost when the energy efficiency message is conveyed in a meaningful way by communicating tying the savings directly to environmental and community benefits. This program yields benefits to the utilities, residential customers, retailers and local community groups