Power
company
to finance
insulation
installation
By KATHLEEN MONJE
Of the Emerald
Pacific Power and Light Co.
(PP&L) hopes to pay for insulation
improvements in 100,000 Oregon
homes over the next five years,
including some of the 19,000 Lane
County houses to which it sup
plies electricity.
The utility plans — at the cus
tomers request — to send experts
to single-family homes to do home
energy analyses and identify cur
rently wasted energy.
Then, if the home’s "weatheri
zation capabilities’’ are deficient,
PP&L will hire a local contractor to
«55
unrig n up 10 cost-eftective'stan
dards — a level of weatherization
where the energy savings will
make the improvements worth
while.
Company inspectors would
then check the work and pay for it,
if approved. The homeowner will
agree to pay the utility for its in
vestment, without interest, when
the home is sold.
The $75 million insulation and
weatherization program was an
nounced by PP&L Pres. Don Fris
bee in Portland Monday.
According to Bud Prince, the
utility’s director of public infor
tion, PP&L decided that the
energy conservation program
would be cheaper than building
new generating plants.
"The program should save
64,000 kilowatts over the next five
years, which is twice our annual
load growth of residential custom
ers,” Prince said.
Prince explained the insulation
program will be paid for by con
sumers, but at a lower rate than
the cost of building new generat
ing plants to provide electricity.
“What we’re doing is supplying
kilowatt hours (by energy conser
vation) at a lower cost than build
ing new plants.”
The insulation and weatheriza
tion improvements the company
thinks will save the most energy
are the insulation of floors and ceil
ings and the installation of double
windows and storm doors.
“We estimate there are 70,000
homes in Oregon, space-heated
with electricity and built prior to the
1974 building code, which can
benefit from added insulation,”
Prince said.
Another 30,000 residences use
electricity for heating their water,
and could benefit from insulation
of water pipes and areas where
water heaters have been instal
led, Prince said.
The insulation program must be
approved by the state Public Util
ity Commission (PUC) before
PP&L can put its plans into action.
Prince said the company will
submit the program to PUC later
this week.
‘We would need to investigate
their figures to approve the plan,"
said PUC information director
Jonne Hower. She expects the
idea will be approved — “it’s an
innovative approach.”
Hower said PUC would proba
bly decide on the program’s feasi
bility within a month after the utility
submits its plan.
‘‘We should be making an
nouncements of public hearings
by then,” she said.
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OSPIRG gives advice
to state health planners
By CAROLYN BEAVER
Of the Emerald
The Oregon Student Public In
terest Research Group (OSPIRG)
has given state health planners a
two page list of criteria to aid them
in determining what kind of new
medical services should be of
fered.
The criteria were submitted to
the State Health Planning and
Development Agency (SHPDA) at
a Portland hearing on Monday.
Before certain health services and
facilities can be implemented, the
SHPDA must award the applicant
a certificate of need.
Right now the planning group
has a set of general criteria they
use when awarding need certifi
cates, but OSPIRG members feel
more specific criteria should be
adopted. SHPDA is taking sug
gestions until April 24 and will
make a final list of criteria by May
1.
OSPIRG Director Bill Van Dyke
presented several ideas to the
group.
"Since escalating health care
costs are an important concern of
state legislation governing health
planning in Oregon, projected
cost changes and their impact
should be clearly spelled out," be
fore a certificate is granted, said
Van Dyke.
According to government and
private studies, hospitals
should offer four beds for every
1,000 persons in the hospital's
surrounding area. Also, the hospi
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tal should continually operate at
80 percent capacity.
Van Dyke asked these two
things be projected for proposed
facilities. The only exception
might be for facilities that would
have extreme emergency health
care needs, said Van Dyke.
Not only did OSPIRG take exist
ing health care users into consid
eration, it also considered the
“medically underserved popula
tion’’ Van Dyke said.
One health planning criteria
should be "to show how proposals
for new facilities would serve their
needs. We need to find out who
doesn’t get health care and how
we might get it to them,” he said.
Van Dyke told the group that
any proposed service resulting in
consumer cost increase must also
bring an improvement in the
health of the population being
served.
“It makes no sense to expect
health care consumers to pay
higher health care costs if the
health service will not result in a
corresponding improvement in
the health of the population,” said
Van Dyke.
Van Dyke suggested existing
facilities be used more efficiently
to cut the need for new facilities.
"We found that many hospitals
don’t schedule operating rooms
more than four hours a dav. A new
hospital may be built when there
isn’t a need for one’’ on thatbasis,
he said.
"Individual hospitals oversee
their own development,” Van
Dyke said. “They try to attract doc
tors, because they bring patients.
They try to give them the best of
everything you can give them."
Consequently, many hospitals
have duplicated facilities unnec
cessarily. If facilities could be
shared, hospitals would be more
efficient and less costly, Van Dyke
explained.
Van Dyke said OSPIRG plans
to continue fighting for better
health planning since health care
costs have gotten “out of control.”
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