by Brianna Crandall — November 6, 2015—The Pew Charitable Trusts released a new report, Cleaner, Cheaper, Stronger: Industrial Efficiency in the Changing Utility Landscape, last week that examines how the U.S. electric utility industry is moving towards a dynamic and transformative opportunity for the nation’s economic, environmental, and energy future.
The report finds that a variety of technological, competitive, and market forces are changing how the United States generates power and ways that Americans interact with the electric grid.
A centralized system is yielding to advanced, distributed-energy generation capabilities in which power is produced at or near the place where it is consumed. This change allows the industry to respond to new market opportunities and evolving consumer desires.
The report concludes with an evaluation of the impact of key regulatory and legislative policies on the deployment of industrial energy efficiency technologies in order to help federal policymakers effectively encourage adoption of these systems.
The Pew Charitable Trusts commissioned ICF International to model these policies and found that implementation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan and an improved federal investment tax credit could result in a 27% increase in adoption by 2030.
Key findings include:
- $150 billion: The amount electricity blackouts cost U.S. businesses every year
- 300: Number of U.S. electric grid disturbances from 2011-2013—more than any other developed nation
- 90%: Share of new power capacity that came from gas and renewable energy sources since 2000
- 27%: Amount that enhanced tax policies could boost WHP and CHP deployment by 2030
Cleaner, Cheaper, Stronger: Industrial Efficiency in the Changing Utility Landscape is available for free download from the Pew Charitable Trusts Web site.
