Xcel invested $27 million in the project, and the rest comes from grants and partner technology firms. Ninety-six percent of Boulder homes are enabled to use the technology, though installation is voluntary. Xcel expects just over half the city’s homes to have the meters up and running this fall. Users will be able to access information about their energy usage via a website run by GridPoint.

The Obama administration has advocated for development of smart grid technology, and the stimulus plan included $4 billion in funding. Some conservative pundits have criticized the technology recently as part of the administration’s “radical” environmental agenda.

With President Obama playing a cameo role in a recurring TV ad sponsored by American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCE), you may be wondering just what the administration’s priorities are for energy innovation. Rest assured, under the stimulus bill passed by Congress, “clean coal” research will get less than a quarter as much federal money as energy efficiency, conservation and renewables, according to Department of Energy figures released last week.

With the announcement of $3.2 billion in block grants for local governments to spend on energy efficiency and conservation, the total stimulus spending on energy is now clear, notes Lane Burt of the National Resources Defense Council. Efficiency and renewable energy — including assistance to low-income homeowners, grants to state and local governments, federal office building improvements, and support for advanced battery manufacturers — will receive a total of $16.8 billion in the next two years while fossil energy research and development will receive $3.4 billion. That’s more than green crusaders like Al Gore  (“Clean coal’s like healthy cigarettes”) would like, but far from a top priority.

Following yesterday’s revelation that cap-and-trade legislation would not be included in the fiscal year 2010 budget, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Vice President Joe Biden today rolled out a $3.2 billion program to improve efficiency at the state and local level.

The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) Program commits $1.9 billion to cities and counties and $770 million to states and territories for “energy audits and energy efficiency retrofits in residential and commercial buildings, the development and implementation of advanced building codes and inspections, and the creation of financial incentive programs for energy efficiency improvements,” according to a White House press release. An additional $456 million will be available for local efficiency project bids at a later date.

These measures come on the heels of an even larger $8 billion weatherization program, announced exactly two weeks ago.

Energy efficiency is being enacted much more quickly than the administration’s other environmental goals, in large part because it costs comparatively little and is simpler to implement.

“The funding will be used for the cheapest, cleanest and most reliable energy technologies we have – energy efficiency and conservation – which can be deployed immediately,” Chu explained.

A full description of the EECBG program can be found on the Department of Energy Website.

The plan has two components: the $5 billion Weatherization Assistance Program and the $3 billion State Energy Program. The former will provide up to $6,500 in energy efficiency upgrades for households with income up to twice the federal poverty level (or a bit more in Alaska and Hawaii, presumably because of higher energy costs there). The latter will fund rebates for families that undertake upgrades on their own, as well as state and local efficiency programs.

The first installment of the investments — to the tune of $780 million — will be released in the next few days, with the remainder slowly becoming available as states demonstrate the effectiveness of their efforts.

According to Chu, these programs are a central piece of the administration’s broader energy efficiency goals. “Even as we seize the enormous potential of clean energy sources like wind and solar, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act makes a major investment in energy efficiency, which is the most cost effective route to energy independence,” Chu said.

The White House estimates that weatherization will reduce the average low-income household’s heating bills by 32 percent, in addition to other energy savings.

He explained the mysterious math that led to the $646 billion revenue projection from selling allowances over the next ten years and revealed it to be … well, pretty mysterious.

“What we specified in the budget is a cap-and-trade target,” Orszag said. There are a number of paths to reach this target, and the budget team did not get into specifics when creating its projection. “Under any plausible path,” Orszag said, “there is sufficient funding to do the energy efficiency investments” and finance tax credits for low- and middle-income workers, as specified in the budget.

“We are expecting that cap-and-trade will raise at least $600 billion,” he continued, adding that any additional resources would be used to offset higher energy costs for households across the country.

Given the uncertain future of cap-and-trade in the face of heavy Republican opposition, I asked him if the administration was sufficiently confident the policy would be enacted that it felt comfortable tying $15 billion a year in clean energy investments to revenue from cap-and-trade.

His response: “We desperately want and need the energy efficiency improvements … and we think this is the most sensible way of financing those investments along with ‘making work pay.’”

A brief note: The budget outline sets aside $120 billion for “clean energy technologies,” but Orszag continually referred to this provision as a plan for “energy efficiency” improvements/investments. That leaves some uncertainty as to exactly what this funding will be used for. Or maybe the budget man, with dozens of 11-figure numbers floating around in his head, simply misspoke. Overall, though, his comprehensive understanding of all the issues contained in the budget was thoroughly impressive.

The National Conference of State Legislatures, in conjunction with the University of Maryland and the Center for Integrative Environmental Research, is releasing reports that also show that economic and environmental interests are aligning in other states.

The studies lay out the rising economic costs of global warming on states’ agriculture, water resources, public health, tourism, transportation, forestry and infrastructure. In some states, cutting greenhouse gas emissions has reduced these costs and fostered economic growth.

The conference recommends that all states pursue tougher environmental regulations because a state’s economy is invariably linked to the economies of its neighbors.

Among the states featured in the new reports are North Carolina, Tennessee, North Dakota and Pennsylvania (pdf here). (Cost-analysis reports for Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey and Ohio were released in July at the conference’s Legislative Summit in New Orleans.)

As in California, energy-efficiency policies are the most cost-effective options for states seeking to reduce greenhouse gases, according to the reports. Minnesota, for instance, saw a return of $3 in economic gains for every dollar spent on its energy-efficiency programs. Other states are considering legislation that would require new buildings to meet certain efficiency standards, while renovations of existing ones would have to meet green standards. You can read the cost reports for 12 states here.

The policy recommendations of the National Conference of State Legislatures will probably encounter some resistance from industry forces. But if California’s example shows anything, it’s that industry can benefit from tougher environmental protections.

But a new economic study released today crunches some numbers and finds that environmental and economic interests are often aligned.

In California, government policies promoting energy efficiency created about 1.5 million jobs and saved consumers about $56 billion in energy costs from 1977 to 2007, says economist David Roland-Holst of the UC Berkeley Center for Energy, Resources and Economic Sustainability, who conducted the study.

California was way ahead of most states in embracing energy-efficiency policies. These policies, adopted as early as 1978, have stimulated certain sectors of the state’s economy, according to the study.

Specifically, from 1977 to 2007, employee compensation in the state’s service sector increased by $17.8 billion,  in wholesale and retail trade by $11.2 billion, in the financial and insurance sectors by $7.3 billion and in the light industrial sector by $1.2 billion — all because of the energy efficiency policies. Workers in the electric power industry were the exception — their compensation dropped by $1.6 billion.

When there’s less demand for electricity because of greater efficiencies, the study explains, consumers have more money to spend on other things and employers respond to the increased demand by creating more jobs.

Then there are the environmental of curbing climate change and reducing our dependency on foreign oil, which power generating plants. As Roland-Host told the AP, “If the country can follow California’s example, it will have a dramatic effect on our future emissions and energy independence.”