Enigin Update - Billions Could be Saved in Southern U.S. through Energy Efficiency
A report released on Monday revealed the substantial savings to be made through the application of energy efficiency across 16 southern U.S. States.
"The question always arises as to how much wasted energy can be eliminated, and at what cost," said Marilyn Brown of the Georgia Institute of Technology. "We've tried to answer that question relative to the Southern (U.S.) states."
Brown and Duke University scientist Etan Gumerman used U.S. Energy Information Administration models for their yearlong analysis, titled Energy Efficiency in the South .
"Relative to the rest of the country, the South consumes a particularly large share of industrial energy, accounting for 51 percent of the nation's total industrial energy use," the study said, noting that the region also lags behind other parts of the U.S. in energy efficiency.
"An aggressive commitment to energy efficiency could be an economic windfall for the South," said Brown and co-lead researcher of the study. "Such a shift would lower energy bills for cash-strapped consumers and businesses and create more new jobs for Southern workers."
Across the South, the report says that investing $200 billion in energy efficiency programs over the next two decades could yield $448 billion in savings and pave the way for the creation of more than 500,000 jobs each year by 2030.
The additional jobs would emerge from expanded manufacturing and construction activity associated with more efficient homes and businesses, the report said.
"Policies that drive a higher level of efficiency investments can create new jobs quickly, and can sustain a favorable employment balance because of the utility bill savings that foster long-term growth in other productive sectors of the economy."
Enigin Distributors across the southern United States are already helping many businesses and organisations to save money through energy efficiency, a vital aspect as energy cost rise and budgets and profits are squeezed.
Industries, Brown added, could benefit from incentives to improve processes to save energy and policies that promote combined use of heat and power -- such as using waste heat to generate electricity.
"That is a vast area to be tapped," she said during a Monday conference call with reporters.
The South, she said, has so much opportunity for energy efficiency that a projected 13 percent consumption increase by 2020 could be offset.
"We have outlined a future in which there is no energy growth throughout the South," Brown said. "It is a scenario in which we would avoid 20 years of energy growth."
Although investments in energy saving programs are significant, the return is even greater -- providing a $2.25 benefit for every dollar invested across the residential, industrial and commercial sectors.
Gumerman said the benefits of energy efficiency are rapidly multiplied by avoiding the need for additional power plants.
"If electricity demand is flattened, and we project it would be with these energy efficiency measures, then fewer power plants would be needed," he said. "We could see that up to 100 typically sized power plants could be delayed and not needed to be built now through 2030."
Avoiding the urgency of new power plants, he added, would make it more economical to retire older, less-efficient plants as new ones are built.
