A Governor's Guide to Clean Power Generation and Energy Efficiency

Meeting today’s electricity needs calls for addressing two important and seemingly incompatible challenges: satisfying steadily growing demand and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.The United States’ electricity demand totaled more than 3,800 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) in 2006 and is expected to grow approximately 1.1 percent each year in the next two decades. By 2030, electricity consumption will be about 26 percent greater than it is today.Meanwhile, electricity production and distribution accounts for 40 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. These emissions are projected to grow more than 20 percent by 2030 amid rising concerns about greenhouse gas emissions.

While no single electricity resource will be able to fully meet steadily growing demand, energy efficiency and power generation from renewable energy sources, nuclear, natural gas, and coal (combined with the use of carbon capture and storage) all offer ways to meet electricity demand growth and to manage greenhouse gas emissions at the same time. Cost-effective energy efficiency alone could reduce load growth by half between now and 2025,1 saving $100 billion in avoided utility costs and reducing greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to taking 90 million vehicles off the road.

States have a substantial role to play in creating a cleaner energy future through enhanced electricity planning efforts and policies that drive greater adoption of efficiency and cleaner power sources.Many states are choosing to focus first on energy efficiency, conservation, and demand-response measures as the quickest, easiest, and least expensive solutions. This focus has many states looking for ways to improve building energy use and reconsidering the regulatory framework and rate structure for utilities.