On June 20, 2023, the Village Board of Oak Park, Illinois voted in favor of an all-electric new construction ordinance as part of their building code. This makes Oak Park the first municipality in Illinois - and the Midwest - to pass an electrification ordinance. Electrification was one of the steps identified as necessary to achieve community-wide net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, as set forth by the Village in Climate Ready Oak Park. This follows the adoption of a benchmarking ordinance approved in February 2023.

The City of Chicago recently released the Chicago Building Decarbonization Strategy Report, which includes recommendations from the Chicago Building Decarbonization Working Group (CBDWG) on how to equitably address greenhouse gas emissions from buildings.

Recreational cannabis hits the shelves January 1, 2020 in both Illinois and Michigan. How will the race to market impact energy use?

Growing cannabis is an energy-intensive process, and as cultivators focus on getting product ready as quickly as possible, it will be easy for energy efficiency to get pushed to the backburner and energy consumption to rise.

After an extensive four-month debate, on July 23, 2019, the Ohio General Assembly passed H.B. 6, a nuclear subsidy bill which will essentially eliminate energy efficiency programs in the state. Governor DeWine signed the bill into law the same day.

In February, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) issued a proposal to roll back light bulb efficiency standards set to take effect in 2020.

On May 4, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed Senate File 2311(SF 2311) into law, which will make significant changes to the way utilities drive customer energy savings programs within the state. Most notably, the bill caps utility investments in energy efficiency and created a broad opt-out provision for all customers.

To most outsiders, the world of energy efficiency probably appears static with slow, incremental changes. A furnace rebate here, light bulb swap-out there, maybe an updated building energy code every few years. But it should come as no surprise to industry insiders that this isn’t the case at all. An explosion of new technology across every part of our economy is rapidly changing our energy savings goals and the ways we identify and capture those savings.

The MPSC’s IRP Authority

One big story coming out of the Michigan energy package enacted this past December is the significant authority given to the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) on a number of critically important facets of energy policy analysis, administration and implementation.

On December 21, 2016, Governor Snyder signed into law a comprehensive energy bill package (PA 341/PA 342) that the Michigan legislature passed (as SB 437/SB 438) on December 15, 2016, the very last day of its “lame duck” fall session. PA 341 amends PA 3 and PA 342 amends PA 295.

After more than two years of legislative proposals and negotiations, on Wednesday, December 7, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner signed into law the Future Energy Jobs Bill (SB 2814). The bill, which contains support for renewable energy, nuclear energy and energy efficiency, was passed by the Illinois legislature on December 1, the last day of veto session, with bipartisan support and will take effect June 1, 2017.