Energy efficiency--it's not just the low-hanging fruit, it's the fruit that's lying on the ground, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu recently quipped. Now McKinsey has put a number on the potential savings: US$1.2 trillion on an investment of US$520 billion over 10 years.
The consulting firm on Wednesday released a follow-up report to its often-cited economic analysis for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
While there are countless proposals to generate energy in cleaner ways, the McKinsey study concluded that using existing products and practices, such as weatherizing homes or installing combined heat and power systems, could yield vast savings by 2020.
However, there are number of barriers, including the up-front cost, a fragmented array of products covering hundreds of thousands of buildings and billions of devices, and a lack of awareness that efficiency exists as a "fuel source" itself, McKinsey consultants said during a press conference Wednesday.
"If we do nothing, we will waste US$1.2 trillion of energy," McKinsey partner Ken Ostrowski said. "Over a decade, (the up-front investment) would be US$50 billion a year, which is about five times what we invest today. That investment pays back--it's one of the few that generate environmental benefits and economic cost returns."
The study examined the potential for efficiency in stationary sources, so it does not include transportation. The demand for power could be decreased 23 percent by 2020, which is equivalent to the non-transportation energy consumption of Canada or removing the entire United States passenger fleet from the road.
Individual homes and businesses could save about 28 percent off their current energy spending, while the industrial sector could save 20 percent. Within people's homes, electronic devices are quickly becoming a larger portion of monthly electric bills.
When surveyed, the average American estimates that "plug loads" represent 13 percent of energy consumption, but the number is more like 35 percent and growing, Ostrowski said.
Standby power alone, sometimes referred to a home's parasitic or vampire load, is 6 percent to 8 percent of the total. Putting in place efficiency standards to cut standby power could result in energy savings equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of the Netherlands, Ostrowski said.
"These things are significant but fragmented. The awareness levels are not there today, and that's one of the barriers we have to overcome," he said.
This article was first published as a blog post on CNET News.
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