U.S. Department of Energy - Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

Office of EERE

National Action Plan for Energy Efficiency

If fully implemented, the U.S. could save more than $500 billion and achieve annual emission reductions equivalent to those from 90 million vehicles.

The National Action Plan for Energy Efficiency is a private-public initiative begun in the fall of 2005 to create a sustainable, aggressive national commitment to energy efficiency through the collaborative efforts of gas and electric utilities, utility regulators, and other partner organizations. Such a commitment can take advantage of large opportunities in U.S. homes, buildings, and schools to reduce energy use, save billions on customer energy bills, and reduce the need for new power supplies. National Action Plan Leadership Group members are identifying key barriers limiting greater U.S. investment in energy efficiency, and developing and documenting sound business practices for removing these barriers. The Leadership Group members and Observers have been joined by numerous other key stakeholders in making commitments under the National Action Plan to work within their own organizations and across their spheres of influence to increase attention to, remove barriers to, and increase investment in cost-effective energy efficiency.

Goals

The goal of the National Action Plan for Energy Efficiency is to create a sustainable, aggressive national commitment to energy efficiency through gas and electric utilities, utility regulators, and partner organizations.

The National Action Plan for Energy Efficiency recommends five key strategies that all energy stakeholders should commit to in order to help meet our nation's energy challenges:

  1. Recognize energy efficiency as a high-priority energy resource.
  2. Make a strong, long-term commitment to implement cost-effective energy efficiency as a resource.
  3. Broadly communicate the benefits of and opportunities for energy efficiency.
  4. Provide sufficient, timely, and stable program funding to deliver energy efficiency where cost-effective.
  5. Modify policies to align utility incentives with the delivery of cost-effective energy efficiency, and modify ratemaking practices to promote energy efficiency investments.

Nearly 120 organizations have taken action to help make the action plan a reality; more than 30 have committed in the past year. These commitments to energy efficiency, from 42 utility commissions and other state and local agencies, 34 utilities, 7 large-end-users, and more than 37 other organizations, have helped remove barriers to energy efficiency by establishing and supporting state-level collaborative processes, starting new energy efficiency programs, exploring policies and efforts to align utility incentives with cost effective energy efficiency, educating stakeholders, and meeting aggressive energy savings goals.

Resources

The Action Plan Leadership Group also released a number of "how-to" resources to help parties meet their commitments to energy efficiency. Some of these are available as Adobe Acrobat PDFs. Download Adobe Reader. Key materials include: