Jonathan G. Koomey, , Celina Atkinson, Alan Meier, James E. McMahon, Stan Boghosian, Barbara Atkinson, Isaac Turiel, Mark D. Levine, Bruce Nordman, and Peter Chan

Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
Berkeley, CA 94720
July 1991

This report describes and documents an ongoing analysis of the technical potential for electricity efficiency improvements in the U.S. residential sector. Previous analyses have estimated the conservation potential for other countries, states, or individual utility service territories. As concern over greenhouse gas emissions has increased, interest has grown in estimates of conservation potential for the U.S. residential sector as a whole. Earlier estimates of U.S. conservation potential are either out of date or are less detailed than is desirable for engineering-economic estimates of the costs of reducing carbon emissions.

This study represents the most elaborate assessment to date of U.S. residential sector electricity efficiency improvements. It relies on regional disaggregation of input data, a stateof-the-art database of appliance efficiency and costs developed for the U.S. Department of Energy, and detailed analysis of thermal integrity measures in single-family dwellings. Fuel switching from electricity to direct use of natural gas has been included for water heaters, ranges, and clothes dryers. Advanced technologies (including "superwindows", spectrally selective glazings, evacuated panels for refrigerators, and heat-pump water heaters) have been included based on engineering estimates of their costs and dates of availability.

Efficiency improvements have been characterized in terms of their cost of conserved energy ($/kWh), for convenient comparison with the cost of competing electricity generating technologies. The total technical potential (without considering cost) is about 486 TWh, or about 48% of the frozen efficiency baseline. Total technical potential savings costing less than 7.6¢/kWh are 404 TWh/year by 2010, at an average cost of 3.4 ¢/kWh. If fully captured, savings costing less than 7.6¢/kWh would correspond to the output of 70-75 baseload (1000 MW) coal or nuclear plants.

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