RALEIGH - After months of hearings before the state Utilities Commission on Duke Energy's controversial Save-a-Watt program, 14 nonprofits called for a totally different approach to getting savings from efficiency for energy consumers.

Instead of overpaying utilities for programs like Save-a-Watt, which are mostly about shifting loads and wouldn't produce real savings for ratepayers or help for the environment, we called for a statewide program, independent of the utility companies, to promote energy efficiency. In August, the alliance asked the Utilities Commission to consider this approach, which we call NC SAVE$. The commission has agreed to do so.

Groups supporting NC-SAVE$ range from consumer advocacy and anti-poverty groups to religious, senior and environmental organizations, but they share a commitment to bringing benefits to all North Carolinians and doing our share for climate stabilization and public health. Several groups will be formally intervening in the commission's proceedings.

In contrast to the Save-a-Watt hearings, where public interest groups and even the Utilities Commission's Public Staff took repeated shots at Duke Energy's poorly structured and overreaching proposal, the NC SAVE$ hearings can be an invitation to all of us to create a program that will achieve as much efficiency as possible while keeping the savings in consumers' pockets.

A statewide, independent approach isn't new. In an updated report on such programs released last month (www.cwfnc.org), researchers document success in saving energy and reducing emissions in six other states.

In addition to achieving substantial savings for electric ratepayers, most states have efficiency programs for natural gas and some promote renewable energy sources as well. Each of the programs is cost-effective, independently audited each year and operates with oversight of a state utilities commission. Delaware's new "Sustainable Energy Utility" is perhaps the most ambitious of all, expecting to achieve 30 percent gains in efficiency in electric, gas and transportation sectors by 2015.

Not surprisingly, an independently administered program, freed of the utilities' expectations of big compensation for a program that could reduce their electricity sales, can achieve far more for more people and do so more quickly. In contrast to Duke Energy's expectation of a lag time before getting significant efficiency, Vermont has served more than 60 percent of its residents in only eight years, and New York's low-income programs are saving residents an average of $225 a year on utility bills for each home served.

North Carolina's mostly coal- and nuclear-based electric supply, which currently withdraws more water than all other uses in North Carolina combined, is deeply vulnerable to rising water temperatures and extended droughts as our climate changes. We simply cannot justify continuing to waste and degrade our public waters on such a massive scale, especially for the privilege of wasting energy in our homes and workplaces.

It's a moral responsibility to conserve our waters for human use and ecosystems; to protect public health and stabilize our climate; to create sustainable, locally based jobs that will restore our environment and to save money for those who can least afford growing utility bills.

Save-a-Watt doesn't even give a nod to any of these goals, but NC SAVE$, with a clear public interest mission, will reach as far toward them as our creativity and public support can take us.

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