Money Well Spent: Industrial Energy Efficiency Program Spending in 2010

Industrial energy efficiency investments are some of the most cost-effective energy efficiency investments to be made. The industrial sector also has the largest potential for energy savings of all major energy-using sectors of the U.S. economy. To capture these savings, a variety of industrial energy efficiency programs are run by utilities as well as federal, state, public benefit, and nonprofit organizations. The authors assess the level of spending by each of these major types of industrial energy efficiency program administrators, using 2010 spending as the chosen metric. Utilities and other administrators of public benefit funds are the largest spenders on industrial energy efficiency, while program spending differs considerably from state to state. The authors also estimate the annual amount spent on industrial energy efficiency programming by programs using federal stimulus funds, and discusses the overall impact of the federal stimulus on spending levels around the country. Finally, the report details the amount of industrial energy efficiency program spending as compared to the level of each state’s total industrial energy consumption.