May 19, 2006—While some claim that all energy waste has been wrung out of the industrial sector, a new report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) finds just as much energy savings potential today as 25 years ago.
Ripe for the Picking: Have We Exhausted the Low-Hanging Fruit in the Industrial Sector? finds that cost-effective energy efficiency measures could save up to 18% of industrial electricity usage. It also notes that the nature of efficiency opportunities has shifted in the past quarter century, with fewer of the low-cost waste energy reduction options common in 1980 and more of the complex opportunities appearing in system optimization.
“Industry has learned a lot about how to be more efficient in the past 25 years,” said co-author Dr. Neal Elliott, ACEEE’s Industrial Program Director. “But the opportunities are still great, thanks to advances in energy-saving technologies. Most of these yield not only energy efficiency, but also productivity and product quality benefits as well.”
The report finds that while the costs of energy savings have increased since the early 1980s, savings are available in the same order of magnitude, and today’s efficiency potential is still very cost-effective.
“Energy efficiency opportunities are like fruit,” said Elliott. “Advances in technology and ‘learning by doing’ grow new crops of energy efficiency fruit over time. They also produce taller ‘ladders’ that we can use to harvest this new efficiency fruit.”
The report also promotes the importance of industrial energy efficiency programs like the Department of Energy’s (DOE) IACs and Save Energy Now.
DOE launched the Save Energy Now campaign in the fall of 2005 to help industry cope with soaring energy costs.
The report is available for free download from ACEEE, or a hard copy can be purchased for $16 plus $5 p&h from ACEEE Publications (see online).
