Californians plugged-in ways highlight crisis

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Californians' Plugged-In Ways Highlight Crisis Energy: Trend toward big houses filled with an array of electrical devices is part of the problem, experts say.

By MARTHA L. WILLMAN, Times Staff Writer

California's energy crisis has its roots in varied quarters. But like many problems in America the trouble begins, in part, at home. Big homes. Homes with multiple computers and giant-screen TVs and restaurant-sized kitchen appliances. Then there are the little old homes with their leaking windows, outdated air conditioners and energy-guzzling water heaters.

All told, our homes are drawing more and more power even as local, state and federal agencies forever hone rules to increase efficient use of resources.

Residential electricity consumption has increased by 13% since 1995 while the state's population has risen 8%, according to the California Energy Commission. In the previous five years, 1990 through 1994, the population grew by 6% while residential electricity consumption increased just 3%.

Gov. Gray Davis has made conservation one of the main points of his efforts to solve California's energy crisis. But the governor may be tilting at windmills. In a consumption-crazy society, things once considered luxuries are now deemed essentials--an attitude that some say must change in light of the new energy realities. The excesses of indulgence can be found in thousands of new homes in tracts across Southern California's valleys and hillsides.

At the Woodlands development in Valencia, houses in the Presidio neighborhood can cover 4,800 square feet. Standard amenities include professional-quality, six-burner stoves, giant self-cleaning double ovens, trash compactors, recirculating hot water systems, banks of recessed ceiling lights and integrated computer ports upstairs and down.

Each home has multimedia wall plates--with sockets and cable ports for TV, stereo and other equipment--in at least four rooms, such as the family room, master bedroom, game room and office. Speakers are placed throughout the houses and provide theater-quality reverberating stereo sound in media rooms.

Furnished models entice buyers to lay out nearly $1 million for their home purchases by adding a chilled wine cellar, a lap pool, fountains or an outdoor fireplace. Even the guard house to the 185-acre Woodlands development has a fireplace and an elaborate fountain.

Similar energy-gulping widgets can be seen in housing developments throughout Southern California, from Camarillo to the San Gabriel Valley, the Inland Empire and Orange County.

"If I have to have less of a yard, I want all of the amenities I can get," said Stephanie Fitzgerald of Massachusetts, who was house hunting at the Woodlands on Saturday. Her husband is considering a job offer in Valencia. The family of five currently lives in a 5,600 square-foot, two-story Tudor home on two acres in Southborough, west of Boston. "I want everything in the house to be done and finished without having to upgrade," she said.

That's what buyers are looking for, said Carol Garcia of Coldwell Banker Vista Realty in Valencia. "When people choose to upgrade their lifestyle, those are the things they want."

In the scheme of things, gadgets in homes are not in themselves going to cause rolling blackouts. Residential power use accounts for less than a third of the state's total consumption, and experts say older, less energy-efficient homes are actually a bigger problem because there are so many more of them.

Nonetheless, it's easier for government to place restrictions on new housing than to force upgrades of older homes--and as California looks to step up energy conservation, "draconian measures may be needed to force conservation and spread the costs around," said Paul Crawford, past president of the California Planning Roundtable.

Although appliances and computers are far more energy efficient than in the past, Crawford said, "the proliferation of those devices may have a similar effect as when California put in air pollution controls on automobiles."

"Air quality began to improve, then the improvement plateaued because the sheer volume of the number of autos offset the savings."As we continue to increase our enjoyment of electronic devices, even though they are energy efficient, the numbers could have offsetting effects."

Planning and development experts say that, just as the low-flush toilet and low-flow shower head emerged from the 1987-92 drought, home energy needs may soon move to the forefront as a key planning issue in new developments, such as the proposed 21,000-home Newhall Ranch development in Santa Clarita--the largest ever approved in Los Angeles County.

"We don't have much of a handle on what our energy growth needs might be," said Joe Carreras, principal planner for the Southern California Assn. of Governments, the official monitor of resources and infrastructure in the six-county region. "This whole thing caught us by surprise."

"The disturbing trend," Carreras said, "is that our homes are not just a place to go in the evening and lay down our heads at night. They are becoming larger and larger, with expanded uses and a whole rich array of gadgets and technology being applied."

World's Toughest Building Standards

The state energy commission says it has tried to ensure conservation by adopting a number of requirements that cut power consumption, such as double-pane windows and extra insulation in walls and attics.

"The building standards in California are the most stringent in the world," said Claudia Chandler, commission spokeswoman.

The annual cost of heating and cooling a three-bedroom, 1,700 square-foot home built today is $720. That compares to $2,700 (in today's dollars) to heat and cool the same size house built 20 years ago, Chandler said. In five years, the costs could drop to just $200 under even tougher standards, she said.

"Homes in California are very efficient already," she added, saying energy-efficient building standards have been in place since 1977. But electricity use today goes far beyond heating and cooling. More people are demanding bigger homes and more gadgets, according to the California Building Industry Assn. And increasingly popular home offices add to the energy burden.

"There's no question that new houses are more energy efficient," said Jay Stark, director of development for the Lee Group in Marina del Rey, winner of 2000's Gold Nugget award for energy efficiency at its Village Green project in Sylmar.

"But lifestyles and technology are a separate issue," Stark said. "Those have increased the amount of electricity people use overall."

The apparently new phenomenon of greater per capita energy use could have major implications for local, state and federal authorities in meeting an ever-increasing demand for energy. Already there is talk, for example, of revising state rules for general plans, which every county must regularly update as guidelines to future development.

The plans monitor water supplies, sewer capacity, police staffing, library and school capacity and other components of growth. But there is no provision--in fact state law prohibits it--for monitoring the supplies of gas and electricity providers, said Bill Miller, chief of Los Angeles County's development monitoring system.

The state subdivision laws protect private utilities from having to reveal their resources, Miller said. "We've just never ever even considered doing that," he said. Even the Sierra Club--the nation's most powerful opponent of rampant urban sprawl--has yet to use an energy shortage as ammunition against development.

"The club doesn't have a policy that we can pull off the shelf and dust off to use," said Rich Ferguson, energy chairman for Sierra Club California, who also is research director of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewal Technologies.

Ferguson said there has been discussion in Sacramento about requiring counties to include an energy plan in their monitoring, but he admits that the issue of sufficient energy is regional in scope, rather than local.

"It sets up an interesting dynamic," he said, suggesting that counties might form an alliance to encourage building generating facilities, say, in Kern County, to serve the surrounding territory. "Counties have to identify where water will come from before they build a bunch of houses. It's time to deal with other resources as well," Ferguson said.

But local governments "traditionally have little or no role in planning for energy supplies," said Yvonne Hunter, legislative analyst for the California League of Cities. "Short of building a [power] plant in the middle of their city, local governments have little opportunity to match supply and demand. That has been a statewide function."

But Hunter said cities can play a greater role in encouraging developers to build better, more efficient houses. She cited the city of Davis as a leader, because of its adoption of a building ordinance years ago with stringent standards, many of which have now been incorporated into state regulations.

In addition to calling for better-insulated windows and walls, the Davis regulations also require builders, when possible, to orient houses in a north-south direction, which takes advantage of natural heating and cooling factors.

Hunter also praised Santa Monica for its innovations, such as requiring that solar heating panels be mounted on south-facing walls of buildings, where they absorb more heat than those on roofs.

"Local governments have been pioneers in getting developers to build homes that exceed the state's energy conservation requirements," Hunter said. She added that the state and federal governments will have to do more in granting incentives, such as tax credits to cities and builders, to encourage greater efforts.

The Alliance to Save Energy, a Washington, D.C.-based coalition of business, government and consumer leaders working to increase energy efficiency, agrees. It is calling for government and private incentives to encourage owners of older homes, for instance, to install energy-saving windows, wall insulation, lighting and appliances.

"We're recommending much more of a crash program in getting people to make those decisions, to make replacements. It's going to take some higher incentives," said Bill Prindle, an alliance director.

The alliance is urging the Bush administration to allow California to preempt federal law by immediately imposing rules requiring that all new residential air conditioners be 30% more efficient than current standards. A federal law for the new standard was adopted under the Clinton administration, but it is not scheduled to go into effect nationally until 2006, Prindle said.

"This is one where we need to say to the Bush administration, 'Hey, if you're going to say this is a California problem, then the minimum you must do is give California a break so it can get the power savings it so desperately needs this summer,' " Prindle said.

Stephen G. Winegar, planning supervisor for Southern California Edison in Valencia, said he has seen the size of new homes and extent of their amenities expand dramatically in the last three years.

The next gadget, he predicts, will be individual home power units. The devices, designed to maintain even voltage throughout a home, could prevent a Cuisinart, for example, from zapping out all the data on a computer.

When is enough enough? According to local officials and critics, no one can say. Before they can build, all developers must obtain a so-called "will-serve letter" from a utility saying it will provide power for the new homes.

But the letters don't guarantee a power supply, and no utility has ever refused to issue such a letter. "We have an obligation to serve customers," Winegar said. "We don't even have the authority to say we can't."

Copyright 2000 Los Angeles Times

-- Swissrose (cellier@azstarnet.com), February 12, 2001


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