| dc.description.abstract | After the two energy crises in 1970s, the price of petroleum started to rise. Countries all over the world also launched programs of substitute energy, and the United States was also one of them. Utility industry has been an industry which the American government actively involved to increase the energy efficiency since 1970s. By the time the U.S government conducted Demand Side Management (DSM) and Integrated Resource Planning (IRP) in 1980s, the California utility industry also adapted to the decoupling policy in order to cooperate with the government. While the power used per capita in America had kept rising since 1970, California always kept their numbers stable, and had the lowest power used per capita in the U.S. by year 2005 (7032 kWh). Our research aims to the utility policies on both the Federal Government of the U.S and the California government since 1970.
The result showed that California, New York, Washington and Maine have effectively lower the power used per capita in the past 20 years due to conducted decoupling policy. Besides, New York, Washington and Maine were all deeply affected by the first IRP conference held by the U.S. Public Utility Commission (UPUC), and California, which only used Electric Rate Adjustment Mechanism (ERAM), also added shareholder incentive into their program after the conference. By the power generating mechanisms of the four states in 2005, California was at the second place of recycled power generating, and Maine was at the first place. From the experience of California energy efficiency, we can conclude the steps of energy efficiency in the past 40 years: governments first invest money to encourage the businesses in utility industry, and then set up laws and regulations; it is also seen to encourage the users using energy efficiency equipments in recent years. We also found that decoupling mechanism will be more effective if it comes up with incentives to the utility companies.
The main contribution of our research is that we are the first study to completely investigate the decoupling policy of utility industry of the U.S in our country, and also included the contents of federal laws, DSM, the history of California energy efficiency and the comparison of various items between California, New York, Washington and Maine.
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