Not to Rest on Our Laurels but Progress is Being Made

Energy efficiency measures are already working in the US in our homes, schools, institutions, commercial buildings and factories. It's just that there is so much more that can be done.

Following the oil crises of 1973 and 1979, regulators in a number of states ordered utilities to set up programs to encourage customers to cut electricity use. Demand side management (DSM) programs and integrated resources planning played an important part in curbing the growth of U.S. electricity demand well into the 1990s. But with electricity deregulation, the role of the state regulatory bodies were downsized and many of the DSM programs atrophied.

With or without utility DSM programs, each unit of energy consumed today provides significantly more energy services than the same unit of energy provided in 1970. In fact, energy efficiency has contributed more value to the economy in recent decades than any conventional energy resource, meeting three-fourths of all new demand for energy services since 1970. To all those people who have stuck with the energy efficiency industry through the ups and downs of the last 20 or 30 years, you should give yourself alot of credit.

Efficiency Gains Compared to New Supply, 1970-2008

(Sorry if this is hard to read. I am still mastering the art of adding images with the blogger software. The source of this graph is "The Size of the U.S. Energy Efficiency Market: Generating a More Complete Picture" Karen Ehrhardt-Martinez and John A. “Skip” Laitner,May 2008, Report Number E083, American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, www.aceee.org. )

Estimates indicate that by the end of 2008, U.S. energy consumption per dollar of economic output will have declined by more than 50 percent since 1970, from 18,000 Btus to about 8,900 in 2008. As such, current levels of energy consumption in the U.S. are only half of what they would have been if levels of energy services, the structure of the economy, and overall energy productivity had remained unchanged. But I am not suggesting we should rest on our laurels. There is significant improvement yet to be made.