Rural Missouri - November 2020 - 4

R M | C O O P E R AT I O N

hen it comes to electricity, it's
time to think bigger. By looking at electricity in a new
light, we can reveal surprising ways to make our lives
better -- from saving money to
helping the environment.
Keith Dennis agrees with this
approach. He is vice president
of consumer-member engagement for the National Rural
Electric Cooperative Association.
He is part of a group promoting
an approach to electricity that
unites utilities and environmental advocates; redeﬁnes the meaning
of energy efﬁciency; and reduces
costs. That new way of thinking
is catching on, and he says, "it's
become a bit of a movement."
It's called "beneﬁcial electriﬁcation," a tongue twister that refashions our
notion that electricity is something we buy
to run our refrigerators and charge our
phones. Instead, it's a concept that reveals
new ways that energy can improve our
quality of life from our everyday lives at
home to the more effective operation of the
electric grid.
Keith explains beneﬁcial electriﬁcation this way:
Think about your gasoline-powered lawnmower.
Maybe you love it. Maybe the size of your mowing job
takes longer than a battery lasts.
On the other hand, thinking through the advantages of an electric mower could uncover surprising
reasons to switch. No more gas cans to ﬁll and store
in a garage. You don't have to worry about gas fumes
or yanking a cord hoping the motor will start up this
time. An electric mower is quieter and less intrusive
on neighbors and family.
From there the beneﬁts go global. An idle mower
plugged in for recharging becomes part of the electric
grid. In the future, with enough mowers plugged in,
timing could be coordinated so the charging happens
when people are using the least amount of electricity,
maybe in the middle of the night. That would allow
electric utilities to operate more efﬁciently.
The renewable energy trend is part of what led
to one of the nation's leading environmental groups
becoming part of the beneﬁcial electriﬁcation movement. The National Resources Defense Council has
worked with NRECA to form the Beneﬁcial Electriﬁcation League.
In 2018, the NRDC published a report outlining
a broad plan to signiﬁcantly reduce greenhouse gas
emissions. A key part of that plan calls for using electricity for a bigger share of our energy consumption
- a lot more. The plan calls for increasing electricity's contribution to all end-use energy from about

photo courtesy Stihl Inc.

The advantages of electric tools can offer many quality-of-life beneﬁts.

Beneficial electrification
Rethinking electricity's role in our lives

RURAL MISSOURI | NOVEMBER 2020

20% today, to 45% in 2050.
Keith describes the NRDC's support of beneﬁcial
electriﬁcation, saying, "When they do the math, they
ﬁnd out that electriﬁcation of more things is the
answer. It's one of the only pathways to a low-carbon
future."
He says that beneﬁcial electriﬁcation shows the
need to rethink what energy efﬁciency means. It's not
conservation, he says. As initiatives like the federal
government's ENERGY STAR program help consumers save money on the most efﬁcient electric products, and the advantages of beneﬁcial electriﬁcation
become more well-known, he says energy efﬁciency
can actually mean using more electricity.
"When people talk about energy efﬁciency, they
don't necessarily take into account the system-wide
beneﬁts of electricity," he says. "There's a big opportunity for electriﬁcation to meet many objectives: saving money, reducing environmental impact, increasing the quality of life and helping the electric grid."
Electric co-ops, Keith says, are especially well-suited to rethink the role of electricity. When electric
co-ops were ﬁrst formed in the 1930s, it wasn't to
deliver electricity to areas without the service, but to
improve the quality of life with the beneﬁts electricity
could bring.
"The idea of beneﬁcial electriﬁcation is really in
the DNA of electric co-ops," says Keith. "Just like 80
years ago when they saw the chance to improve people's quality of life, today they're continuing to ﬁnd
ways to help people. It's second-nature to the co-ops."

Rural Missouri - November 2020

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