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Energy savings from existing standards
According to the 2012 report, The Efficiency Boom, existing standards saved 3.4 quads of energy in 2010, which is equivalent to about 3.5% of total U.S. annual energy consumption. Existing standards will save more than 200 quads of energy cumulatively through 2035, which is equivalent to about two years of total U.S. energy consumption.
Additional key findings from The Efficiency Boom report regarding the savings from products meeting existing standards are as follows:
- Annual electricity savings in 2035 of around 720 TWh, saving about 14% of what the projected electricity consumption in that year would have been without standards.
- Annual natural gas savings in 2035 of about 950 trillion British thermal units (TBtu), or enough to heat 32% of all natural-gas-heated U.S. homes.
- Peak demand savings in 2035 of about 240 gigawatt (GW), saving about 18% of what the total generating capacity projected for 2035 would have been without standards.
For more details, see pages 2-4 of The Efficiency Boom report.
Energy savings from new standards
The Efficiency Boom report evaluates potential new or updated standards for 34 product categories that could be adopted between 2012 and 2016. Due to federal preemption, many of these standards may only be adopted at the national level, but others may be adopted at the state level first. This substantial set of new and updated standards has the potential to generate enormous additional energy and economic savings.
Key findings regarding energy savings include:
- Annual electricity savings in 2035 would equal about 310 TWh, or about 7% of projected electricity consumption in that year.
- Annual natural gas savings would reach about 240 TBtu in 2035, or enough to heat 8% of all the natural-gas-heated U.S. homes.
- Peak electricity demand savings would reach about 67 GW in 2035, or about 6% of total U.S. generating capacity projected for 2035.
The potential savings from new standards are well-distributed between the residential, commercial and industrial sectors.
For more details, see pages 11-14 of The Efficiency Boom report.