Climate-Forward Efficiency

ACEEE’s initiative to scale energy efficiency programs and focus them on meeting the climate challenge

Utility energy efficiency programs have a track record of saving customers energy and money, but the vast majority are not yet meeting their potential to mitigate climate change. Amid a rapid rise in renewable power generation and in technology enabling demand flexibility, it’s time to restructure efficiency efforts to focus them on doing their critical part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Dozens of utilities have set goals of net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Yet few are currently making the investment decisions needed to get there, and even fewer are maximizing the emissions reductions possible from their energy-saving efforts. Meeting these goals will require not simply saving energy but embracing more electrified and grid-interactive equipment in our homes and buildings and integrating these efforts with the shift to a carbon-free electricity system. It means an industry transformation: reforms to the utility business model, shifts in how utilities spur energy-saving progress, and new ways for policymakers and regulators to prioritize approaches that reduce emissions.

ACEEE’s Climate-Forward Efficiency initiative will engage stakeholders across the industry to create a roadmap for this transformation and support those stakeholders with the research, tools, and technical assistance to make these changes.

Learn more

Read more about why we’re taking on this work in our introductory blog post.

Initiative supporters

The Climate-Forward Efficiency initiative’s forthcoming roadmap is generously supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Building Technologies Office, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ComEd, Con Edison, Eversource, LADWP, National Grid, and United Illuminating, with input from Energy Trust of Oregon.