Executive Summary of a Strategic Roadmap 

for American Energy Innovation, Economic 

Growth, and Competitiveness

ACCELERATE 

ENERGY

Productivity 

2030
Accelerate Energy Productivity 2030: A Strategic Roadmap for American Energy Innovation, Economic Growth, and 

Competitiveness was developed by the U.S. Department of Energy in partnership with the Council on Competitiveness 

and the Alliance to Save Energy. 

This document was final as of September 16, 2015. 

If this document is referenced, it should be cited as: 

U.S. Department of Energy. (2015). Accelerate Energy Productivity 2030: A Strategic Roadmap for American Energy 

Innovation, Economic Growth, and Competitiveness. Prepared by Keyser, D.; Mayernik, J., M.; McMillan, C. of National 

Renewable Energy Laboratory; Agan, J.; Kempkey, N.; Zweig, J. of U.S. Department of Energy.

FOR MORE INFORMATION 

Regarding Accelerate Energy Productivity 2030: A Strategic Roadmap for American Energy Innovation, Economic 

Growth, and Competitiveness, please contact: 

John Agan 

U.S. Department of Energy 

John.Agan@hq.doe.gov

Natalie Kempkey 

U.S. Department of Energy 

Natalie.Kempkey@hq.doe.gov

Chad Evans

Council on Competitiveness

cevans@compete.org

Kelly Speakes-Backman

Alliance to Save Energy

ksbackman@ase.org
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The U.S. Department of Energy funded this document to support the Accelerate Energy Productivity 2030 initiative. 

This report was prepared with highly valuable input, direction, and comments by technical experts including David 

Caughran, Jeff Harris, Karen Hughes, David Posner, and Kelly Speakes-Backman on behalf of the Alliance to Save Energy; 

Chad Evans on the behalf of the Council on Competitiveness; Harvey Cutler of Colorado State University; David Bielen of 

the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and offices throughout the U.S. Department of Energy.

The work described in this report was supported by DOE’s Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis under Lawrence 

Berkeley National Laboratory Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231 and National Renewable Energy Laboratory Contract No. 

DE-AC36-08GO28308. 
ENERGY

Productivity

INCREASING THE 

ECONOMIC VALUE 

CREATED PER UNIT 

OF ENERGY USED
ii

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In September 2014, responding to the presidential call to action to double energy 

productivity by 2030, U.S. Secretary of Energy Dr. Ernest Moniz announced the 

Accelerate Energy Productivity 2030 initiative. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) 

partnered with the Council on Competitiveness and the Alliance to Save Energy 

(collectively, the Partners) in a series of public dialogues and executive roundtables 

to raise awareness, galvanize support and develop the strategies necessary to double 

the United States’ energy productivity, defined as the ratio of economic output (gross 

domestic product (GDP)) to primary energy use. 

This publication—Accelerate Energy Productivity 2030: A Strategic Roadmap for American Energy Innovation, 

Economic Growth, and Competitiveness (Roadmap)—outlines a set of pathways to achieve this goal, and makes 

clear the direct, tangible, and long-lasting benefits in doing so: lower energy bills; job creation; economic growth; a 

more globally-competitive manufacturing and industrial base; and greater prosperity for Americans in the decades to 

come. This Roadmap identifies actions a broad range of stakeholders—including businesses; federal, state, and local 

governments; universities and community colleges; and individual consumers—can take to achieve the national goal of 

doubling energy productivity by 2030. 

The Roadmap is organized around two main findings informed by the work of the Partners over the last 12 months:

1. There are demonstrated, proven opportunities in every part of our economy to improve energy productivity. 

The federal government can support increasing energy productivity in many ways, but cannot achieve the goal on 

its own. To be successful and achieve this national goal, we need decision-makers across the country also to take 

action. Attendees of Accelerate Energy Productivity 2030 events discussed a wide range of opportunities for diverse 

stakeholders to improve their energy productivity and contribute to meeting the national goal. The Roadmap highlights 

these success stories along with other effective approaches to driving increased productivity over the next 15 years.

2. New analysis shows how energy productivity can contribute to economic growth. Drawing on discussions 

from the regional roundtables and dialogues as well as existing studies, DOE analyzed illustrative scenarios 

under which the United States can meet the president’s goal by investing in energy productivity improvements. 
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Underpinning the Roadmap is a newly developed modeling framework that uses historical data to project how

changes in investment, energy use, and personal expenditures impact economic activity nationwide. The framework 

also provides insight into the macroeconomic effects of energy productivity. The model is built on established metrics 

for the economic and energy outcomes of six significant policy and investment strategies, each of which is based on 

broad areas of opportunity that stakeholders identified. The model then dynamically analyzes how changes in energy 

use from these strategies would impact GDP.

SUMMARY: HIGHLIGHTS OF STAKEHOLDER STRATEGIES

The Partners launched a series of dialogues with business, academic, and laboratory leaders; state and local government 

officials; and researchers to identify the most promising pathways to meet the national goal of doubling energy 

productivity by 2030. These three regional dialogues and roundtable discussions have informed the sample strategies 

explored in the Roadmap. Example strategies described in the Roadmap are presented by entity: federal, state, and 

local governments; commercial and industrial businesses; electric, gas, and water utilities; higher education institutions; 

and households. The strategies presented here are not meant to be comprehensive. Rather, the Roadmap focuses on 

scalable actions that have the potential to reduce energy consumption and support economic growth. These energy 

productivity strategies often involve multiple economic sectors and levels of government. To present a cohesive analysis 

of the potential impacts of the strategies, this analysis developed six productivity “wedges” as representations of 

aggregated individual strategies. These wedges are summarized in Section 3.

Taken together, these strategies offer a feasible path to the doubling of national energy productivity by 2030. The 

strategies also indicate that participating entities—including both individuals and organizations—can enjoy a potential 

share of the benefits of achieving this goal. 

Government

• Federal Government: Invest in long-term energy productivity through research, development, and demonstration in

transportation, buildings, and manufacturing technologies; secure energy productivity through setting and updating

vehicle and product codes and standards, and providing energy performance information to consumers; support policy

action by state and local governments and the private sector through the provision of tools and other resources to

reap the benefits of energy efficiency; set the financial foundation for energy productivity through tax policies; help

train a workforce geared for energy productivity; and lead by example in adopting new technologies and strategies in

its own operations.

• State Government: Pursue policies to encourage greater energy effi ciency; promote new and innovative fi nancing for

investments that support energy productivity; support and incentivize increased deployment of combined heat and power
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

(CHP); implement smart regional transportation solutions; and adopt and enforce increasingly efficient building codes. 

• State Regulators: Adopt rates and implement related policies affecting utility sector efficiency programs that more

effectively align efficiency efforts with utility business models; and support energy productivity investments in

buildings and infrastructure.

• Local Government: Facilitate distributed generation; establish best practices regarding building energy information;

support the development of advanced manufacturing ecosystems; and reduce personal vehicle miles traveled1

through the built environment-transportation nexus.

• National Laboratories: Serve as incubators for new energy productivity technologies—and where appropriate, enable

new energy-efficient technologies to move rapidly from the lab to the marketplace.

Businesses

• Commercial Businesses: Reduce energy consumption in their own buildings and facilities through energy efficiency;

reinvest the resulting avoided energy costs into growing their businesses; adopt new financing models that promote

energy productivity investments; encourage their suppliers and vendors to take measures to improve energy

productivity; and assist in training a workforce geared for energy productivity.

• Industrial Businesses: In addition to taking similar steps to those taken by commercial entities, leverage publicprivate partnerships; adopt energy management systems; transition to advanced manufacturing technologies; and

explore new, innovative products that enable energy productivity for customers and suppliers.

Utilities

• Electric Utilities: Modernize the grid infrastructure through smart grid investments and improving the efficiency and

interoperability of generation, transmission, storage, and distribution; adopt new utility business models to empower

the improvement of energy productivity; design rates and support related policies for utility energy efficiency

programs that more effectively align energy efficiency with utility business models; and support energy productivity

investments in buildings.

• Water Utilities: Adopt more energy-efficient and energy-extracting technologies at water and wastewater treatment

facilities and more water-efficient technologies in distribution and end use water systems (e.g., wastewater

treatment plants can implement more efficient pumps and deploy onsite waste to energy conversion, such as

digesters and combined heat and power; end use hot water conservation measures also have a direct impact on

energy consumption).

Higher Education Institutions, and Individuals and Households

• Higher Education Institutions: Create new curricula and expand workforce training opportunities across multiple

disciplines (e.g., building trades, engineering, governmental policy, economics, and law) for careers in the clean

1 Vehicle miles traveled is a measure of distance traveled by vehicles over a given period, typically one year.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

energy, energy efficiency, and advanced manufacturing fields; and act as demonstration and commercialization 

“accelerators,” enabling new energy-productive technologies to move rapidly from the lab to the marketplace. In

addition, higher education institutions can invest in making their facilities and fleets more efficient.

• Individuals and Households: Support the markets associated with energy-efficient products in the home and for

transportation and use available resources to make informed choices.

MODELING ENERGY PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENTS

To model the effect of the aforementioned strategies for energy productivity on the U.S. economy, the Roadmap

describes six illustrative productivity “wedges” that collectively represent the strategies. Underlying each wedge are 

assumptions based on existing published studies of the effect of productivity investments on energy use in a particular 

sector of the economy. As a result, the wedges are representative of the types of first order effects one could anticipate 

from the strategies and actions identified in the Roadmap. 

Using the wedges as a model input, the Roadmap employed a vector error correction model (VECM) to estimate the 

effect of the wedges on U.S. GDP. Although there are many different types of econometric models, VECMs have two 

advantages. First, they robustly capture interactions and feedback between sectors of the economy using historical 

relationships. And second, they dynamically estimate future effects of changes to the economy using those historical 

relationships. In other words, VECMs do not assume GDP remains fixed like many static models but allow, for example, 

changes in energy efficiency investment to produce GDP feedback effects through changes in energy prices and the 

amount of energy consumed, among other factors. 

After running the model, the Roadmap is able to rank the six wedges according to their net effect on GDP. The wedges 

analyzed are not the only six options available for improving energy productivity, but are intended to be illustrative of 

the types of energy and economic changes that are expected from following Roadmap strategies and actions. The six 

wedges are presented in descending order of their estimated impact to U.S. energy productivity2

:

• Transportation: Increasing the energy productivity of moving goods and people relies on developing and deploying

new technologies that increase vehicle efficiency, create more options for mass transit, and better integrate

transportation needs with the built environment to reduce the demand for motorized transport.

• Technologies for Buildings Energy Productivity: Improving the energy productivity of buildings requires both the widespread

use of currently available energy-effi cient technologies and practices, and the development of next generation technologies.

• Smart Energy Systems: Energy systems, particularly electricity generation systems and the electricity grid, are sources

2 Economic and energy effects are not estimated for wedge sub-elements. As a result, it is not possible to determine the relative impacts to energy 

productivity of wedge sub-elements.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

and enablers of improvements to U.S. energy productivity. Broad and deep transformations are required to enable 

transitions to distributed energy resources, real-time energy pricing, smart appliances, and increased energy effi ciency.

• Financing for Buildings Energy Productivity: Significant changes to financing mechanisms and market recognition of

the value of energy productivity are required to ensure energy productivity-enabling technology is used by businesses

and households. This includes addressing real or perceived risk to the use and deployment of these technologies,

which can immediately and adversely impact the cost of financing.

• Smart Manufacturing: Sensors and other information and communications technology (ICT) will allow industries

better control over their processes and will improve the energy management of their buildings.

• Water Infrastructure: Reducing energy consumption at water and waste water treatment plants and in water

conveyance and distribution systems involves three actions: improving energy efficiency and demand response,

implementing emerging technologies and processes, and deploying energy recovery and generation technologies.3

DOUBLING ENERGY PRODUCTIVITY BY 2030 IS ACHIEVABLE

The analysis demonstrates that through immediate and sustained actions, doubling energy productivity by 2030 is possible. 

The model estimates the energy productivity wedges increase energy productivity in 2030 to $287/million British thermal 

units (Btu) (MMBtu)— more than double the 2010 baseline of $134/MMBtu. The change in energy productivity is the 

result of increasing GDP ($2005) to $22.5 trillion and reducing primary energy use to 78 quadrillion (quads) Btu by 2030. 

In comparison, model baseline estimates are $21.5 trillion ($2005) and 104 quads in 2030. Thus, in 2030, the Roadmap 

scenario achieves 4.3 percent higher GDP and 25 percent lower primary energy use compared to the baseline.4

 The model 

does account for energy used to produce the additional goods and services purchased by households. This results in 

aggregate energy savings values, including this additional energy from more goods and services, are approximately 14 

percent smaller than the sum of each individual productivity wedge, as indicated by the dashed line in Figure 1.

3 Pabi, S., A. Amarnath, R. Goldstein, and L. Reekie, Electricity Use and Management in the Municipal Water Supply and Wastewater Utilities (Palo Alto, CA: 

Electric Power Research Institute, 2013), accessed July 2015, http://www.waterrf.org/PublicReportLibrary/4454.pdf.

4 This compares to the Energy Information Administration’s Annual Energy Outlook 2015 Reference Case estimates of $22.0 trillion ($2005) and 103 quads in 2030.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Building Technology

Smart Manufacturing

Buildings Finance

Smart Energy Systems

Transportation

Net Impact of Wedges

Business as Usual (BAU)

GOAL

300

2010 2015 2020 2025 2030

250

200

150

ENERGY PRODUCTIVITY (GDP 2005$ per MMBtu)

100

50

0

Figure 1. Estimated Energy Productivity Benefits to 2030

$1400

$1200

$1000

$800

$600

$400

$200

0

$(200)

$(400)

$1400

$1200

$1000

$800

$600

$400

$200

0

$(200)

$(400)

2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030

GDP (BILLIONS 2005$)

SERVICES

GOODS

NATURAL RESOURCES & UTILITIES

Figure 2. Estimated Changes to GDP by Sector
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

According to the model underpinning the Roadmap, the six energy productivity wedges will contribute in aggregate to a net 

increase of $922 billion in U.S. GDP by 2030. This is primarily supported by an increase of $753 billion in household expenditures 

and by a $169 billion increase in investment in products and services that increase energy effi ciency. For households, there 

is a double benefi t: they are able to increase their purchases of other goods and services in part by making energy effi ciency 

investments that reduce their energy bills. Figure 2 shows the estimated changes to GDP by sector.

Producers of goods and services are also shown to benefit from increased economic activity spurred by energy 

productivity investments. The service industry shows the most significant growth, with a nearly $1.08 trillion increase 

over baseline economic activity by 2030. By 2030, goods-providing industries (e.g., manufacturing, agriculture, and 

construction) increase by approximately $91 billion over the model baseline. Declines in economic activity in the natural 

resources and utilities are due to decreases in energy expenditures and demand for production from utilities and their 

supply chain. No specific assumptions are made concerning export markets for natural resources. 

CONCLUSION

As is clear from the Accelerate Energy Productivity 2030 regional roundtables and dialogues, as well as the modeling 

analyses, a wide range of available activities will yield significant productivity benefits. Implementing these activities 

will require changes in behavior, investment, and technology deployment in both the public and private sectors.

Collectively, they can improve U.S. economic output, reduce U.S. energy consumption, and reduce the energy impact 

on the environment. Government and the private sector are already deploying many of these changes. While the task of 

doubling energy productivity is a significant challenge, the fact that many activities are already underway suggests that 

the nation can – and already is – beginning to meet this challenge. The Roadmap provides a foundation for scaling these 

efforts nationwide while allowing for flexible and tailored solutions. 

For more information, and to review the full report, visit www.energy2030.org/roadmap
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