"Bright North Rhine-Westphalia": A Joint LCP-project of 80 utilities, the Ministry of Economics and the Consumer Protection Agency of North Rhine-Westphalia

Panel: Panel 1: Energy Efficiency policies, programmes and their links

Authors:
Prof. Dr. Peter Hennicke, Director of the energy departement of Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Energy and Environment/Science Center North Rhine-Westfalia
Dr. Dieter Schulte-Janson, Head of electricity price regulation unit, Ministry of economics North Rhine-Westphalia

Abstract

A detailed description of a joint LCP-project being conducted in 1996/97 by 80 electric utilities and led by the Ministry of economics in North Rhine-Westphalia (Ministerium für Wirtschaft, Mittelstand, Technologie und Verkehr (MWMTV)) together with the Consumer Protection Agency North Rhine-Westphalia. The project aimed at electric energy savings, CO2 reduction and environment protection by distributing more than 1 million compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) to household customers of electric utilities.

The electricity sector in Germany chose the word "Least-Cost Plannning" as the "phrase of the year" in 1995. Never the less the breakthrough of the underlying idea could not be reached yet. In Germany more than 400 LCP-programs are currently being conducted by more than 100 large and small utilities, but most of them are small scale or carry the item "test"- program. One better known and evaluated large LCP-project can be reported: the "KesS"- program, a project of RWE Energie AG, the biggest German electric utility located in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia.