Almost every state in the U.S. implements significant utility-delivered energy efficiency programs that reduce the need to use or build more expensive power plants. Energy efficiency has real and important impacts: per capita electric use declined by 7 percent between 2010 and 2016, even as gross domestic product (GDP) increased (source). Two-thirds of lower energy use per GDP unit is from energy efficiency, with the other one-third due to structural changes in the economy (source).
Click here to see the entire policy brief, ‘The Impacts of a Virginia Energy Efficiency Resource Standard.”