ACEEE Report: Energy Efficiency Is The Greatest Energy Story You Haven’t Heard
The phrase “energy efficiency” pops up all the time. Why? Because it’s a big deal. Energy efficiency is now the nation’s third-largest “electricity resource.” The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) believes this is a significant story, and we do too. Consider this: energy efficiency saves American households about $840 a year, on average.
ACEEE continues: “This paper quantifies the energy savings and other benefits from a set of energy efficiency programs and policies. We examine the combined savings from appliance and equipment efficiency standards, utility-sector energy efficiency programs, and building energy codes.”
The planet is desperate due to a lack of conservation and the overall exhaustion that has resulted from inefficient means of producing and using energy. Personal choices and technologies that improve efficiency have grown in competitiveness and adoption, though.
The ACEEE report shows that efficiency lowers pollution, and it reduces energy burdens for those most in need. It is a core strategy to halt climate change worldwide.
Some of these successful policies for electricity savings include:
- Appliance and equipment efficiency standards, which prohibit the production and import or sale of appliances and other energy-consuming products that fall below minimum performance requirements while still leaving consumers a wide array of more efficient products to choose among.
- Building energy codes, which set minimum requirements for energy-efficient design and construction for new and renovated buildings.
- Energy efficiency targets, energy savings goals set for utilities to meet through programs that help customers save energy.
- Utility regulatory reforms that change the utility business model so that utilities are incentives to provide energy efficiency services to customers instead of selling more electricity and investing in unnecessary electricity generation resources.
Environmental health is healthcare. Prevention is better than reactive healthcare. The report does not directly show money saved on this one, but it surely is. Improvements in quality of life also can’t be effectively quantified, but they are there as well.
Download the full report here
Related Stories:
Germany, Italy, & Japan Lead Global Energy Efficiency Rankings, Says ACEEE
Increasing A Home’s Value Through Energy & Efficiency Upgrades
Energy-Efficiency Archives on Green Building Elements
Energy Efficiency Companies address the Business of Efficiency
Images: Screenshots from ACEEE
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