ACEEE'S GRAPEVINE ONLINE

February 16, 2005

ACEEE COMPLETES MIDWEST NATURAL GAS STUDY

The Midwest economy has been particularly hard hit by the dramatic increase in natural gas prices over the past couple of years due to the region's high consumption of natural gas (both for space heating and for industrial uses). Together, these states have to import over 90% of the natural gas they use from outside the region. Following up ACEEE's 2004 national study that calculated the price impacts of gains in natural gas end-use efficiency (which can be downloaded for free at http://aceee.org/energy/efnatgas-study.htm), a similar study targeted at the Midwest has just been released. The study, Examining the Potential for Energy Efficiency to Help Address the Natural Gas Crisis in the Midwest, includes the states of Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

The good news is that the Midwest study suggests that an aggressive but achievable energy efficiency effort (saving on the order of 1% per year in natural gas and electricity consumption) could save the region more than $16 billion on their natural gas and electricity costs over five years (2006-2010)—both from direct savings resulting from improved end-use efficiency and from price impacts that would result from decreased aggregate demand for natural gas. The broader economic impacts of increased energy efficiency would also produce over 30,000 net new jobs and $750 million in net additional annual employee compensation by 2010.