Members of the Massachusetts Energy Efficiency Advisory Council urged state officials last week to maintain current program funding for commercial and industrial (C&I) energy efficiency projects, despite not having a clear plan on how to use the budget.

The current draft three-year energy efficiency plan for the state would cut the budget for projects in the C&I sector by over $200 million, though the overall plan budget remains the same. State energy providers, in conjunction with EEAC, develop the state’s three-year plans, and the Department of Energy Resources approves them. The DOER Commissioner chairs EEAC, which comprises members from organizations and interests in the state.

In previous years, a majority of the C&I budget went to energy efficient lighting in facilities. As LED lights become the market norm, DOER has not identified a new focus area that can achieve more ambitious energy cost-saving goals or emissions-reduction goals.

But council members say that the sector can reduce emissions through electrification.

“I am concerned there seems to be a disconnect between policy makers and science and engineering,” said Dennis Villanueva, an EEAC member and senior manager of energy and sustainability at Mass General Brigham hospital.

Villanueva would like the council to develop a working group specifically on the C&I sector, he said during a council meeting on June 23. EEAC members would work with program administrators to develop a plan for using new technologies in the sector and cut emissions before the state submits a final plan resolution next month.

“The climate crisis is here; it’s happening,” said Amy Boyd, council member and director of policy at the Acadia Center. “We can’t ask it to hold on a minute while we figure out how to run a program without lighting.”

Energy-focused organizations in Massachusetts, such as the Home Energy Efficiency Team, have worked to educate lawmakers over the past several years about the potential to cut emissions and lower energy bills by installing ground-source heat pumps.

A study published by the Buro Happold engineering firm found that ground-source heat pump systems shared by buildings along a single street segment, or GeoMicroGrid, could be used to replace natural gas in Massachusetts.

“As gas pipes are replaced, individual GeoMicroDistricts could interconnect to form increasingly larger and more efficient systems that could be managed by a thermal distribution utility” in neighborhoods across the state, according to the study.

Instead of investing over $9 billion to replace leak-prone gas pipes that contradict new state climate laws, DOER can investigate geothermal microgrid systems that are already powering universities and commercial facilities out West.

However, the current 200-page, three-year draft plan makes no mention of ground-source heat pumps.

Growth projections, the plan said, show a significant need for new HVAC and weatherization workers — “a direct effect of the program administrators’ ambitious goals to increase air-source heat pump installations during the 2022-2024 term.”

A load study conducted by Achieve Renewable Energy found that ground-source systems reduce peak demand by 45%, while air-source systems did not reduce peak demand at all, the company’s director, Lawrence Lessard, said during the public comment session.

Ground-source systems also offer two times the annual efficiency of air-source heat pumps, according to Martin Orio, principal of Massachusetts Geothermal, a company that does retrofits in the state.

DOER needs to “take a longer and stronger look at what heat pumps, particularly ground-source heat pumps, can do to meet and exceed 2050 net-zero goals,” Orio said.

The EEAC plans to continue discussion of the draft plan during its meeting July 14, with the opportunity for public comment at the beginning of the session.