The short 2017 Virginia General Assembly is now in session. The VAEEC has taken the following positions on energy efficiency-related bills up for consideration:

VAEEC supports HB 1465 (Sullivan)/ SB 990 (Dance)– Requires DMME or GEC to continue tracking progress towards 10% energy reduction goal (SB 990 passed out of committee 1/23 and is headed to the Senate floor; HB 1465 will be in the energy subcommittee of Commerce and Labor on 1/31; SB 990 passed out of the Senate on 1/31 and will go to the House; HB 1465 was passed by indefinitely on 1/31; SB 990 passed out of the House on 2/17).

VAEEC supports HB 1712 (Minchew)– ESCO coalition bill; amends language on cooperative procurements related to energy performance contracts (Passed out of subcommittee unanimously week of 1/16; passed out of the General Laws committee unanimously on 1/24; will go to the full House for a vote during the week of 1/23; passed out of the House on 1/31 and will go to the Senate).

VAEEC opposes HB 1658 (Marshall)– Anti-benchmarking bill; prohibits third party access to data without consumer consent. This bill will not change current law since third parties cannot access consumer data without the consumer’s consent. After convening a workshop on benchmarking that included VAEEC, several of our members and board members and other interested parties — such as property managers, legislators and homebuilders —  the Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy (DMME) plans to continue those conversations over the course of the year in the hopes of coming to consensus on what a benchmarking program could look like in Virginia. We advocate allowing that process to develop a consensus-based approach to the data access/benchmarking issue instead of preemptively preventing it.

This bill was passed by indefinitely in the subcommittee with a letter to DMME asking them to convene a stakeholder group to discuss the issue of data access.

Stay tuned for updates.