WORKING GROUP PRESENTATION FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSES ONLY.

DO NOT QUOTE OR CITE AS RESULTS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

September 1, 2017

MEMORANDUM FOR: Ian Mead

Assistant Administrator for Energy Analysis

FROM: James Turnure

Director of Office of Energy Consumption and Efficiency Analysis

Kelly Perl

Team Lead of Industrial Efficiency and Consumption Analysis

SUBJECT: Summary of AEO2018 Industrial Working Group Meeting, Part I held on 

August 1, 2017

OBJECTIVE: Minutes from the First Industrial Working Group Meeting.

This memorandum provides an overview of presentation given at the second AEO2018 Industrial 

Working Group meeting and a summary of the discussion that followed. The meeting covered updates 

to the National Energy Modeling System with a particular focus on changes related the industrial sector 

and their expected impacts on the analysis. The full presentation is available under separate cover.

Model updates

The presentation included the following highlights in regard to the side cases and current regulations 

that are likely to be included in AEO2018:

 Current laws and regulations are in place are in the Reference case. Particular areas of interest 

include current California carbon and Boiler Maximum Achievable Control Technology policies.

 EIA will continue to monitor whether the Clean Power plan will remain in Reference case for 

AEO2018.

 One of the side cases may consider an extension to the combined heat and power (CHP) tax 

credits that expired in 2017, which may have an effect on energy use in the industrial sector.

The presentation also highlighted the following updates where either current work was occurring or 

planned future work was expected: 

 New input file for the five process flow industries (paper, glass, cement & lime, iron & steel, 

aluminum) were being developed.

 Detailed unit energy consumption and technology possibility curves for end use industries

were being updated.

Mention was also made of the following data updates:
WORKING GROUP PRESENTATION FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSES ONLY.

DO NOT QUOTE OR CITE AS RESULTS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

 Renewable and non-biogenic waste fuel allocation in cement, agriculture, and food using data 

collected from U.S Geological Survey and Environmental Protection Agency ’s Greenhouse Gas 

Reporting System for these industries 

 New CHP cost and type data

 Biennial data update for CHP capacity and generation from Forms 860 and 923

Discussion

Some discussion after the presentation revolved around the sources of physical data and will EIA be 

using Federal Reserve Industrial tables as a data source. EIA staff indicated that they would provide the 

lists to anyone interested after the meeting.

Some people wondered whether physical units could be provided as an output of the model. EIA staff 

indicated that predicting physical output over the entire projection period is difficult and the exercise is 

fraught with measurement issues when looking beyond a handful of industries, so the agency does not 

officially release such information as part of the AEO. However, process flow industries do have 

measures of output associated with them that are includes as part of the technology choice results that

are available upon request.

There was a discussion of what policy cases could be used. EIA staff stated that there is a possibility of a 

“low” and “high” policy case, although the details of these side cases still needed to be decided upon.

Additionally, there was also a discussion of how macroeconomic conditions are connected to the energy 

sector. Some people thought that because unit energy consumption declines over time, long-term U.S. 

macroeconomic growth might increase as a result. While this is a possibility, EIA staff indicated that the 

United States may not necessarily become more competitive in that regard because other countries may 

reap the rewards of lower energy intensity as well and there are many other factors that are 

traditionally thought of as determinants of long-run economic growth.

Attendees

Guests (in person) Affiliation

Aaron Bergman DOE-EPSA

Joe Cresko DOE-AMO

Robert Hershey Robert L. Hershey, P.E.

Keith Jamison Energetics

Collin McMillian NRFL

Sydney Menees DOE_EPSA

Peri Utley NGSA
WORKING GROUP PRESENTATION FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSES ONLY.

DO NOT QUOTE OR CITE AS RESULTS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

Guests (WebEx/phone) Affiliation

Nate Aden World Resources Institute

Mark Bahner RTI International

Paul Bernstein NERA

Gerard Cunningham Noble Americas

Elizabeth Dutrow EPA

Neil Elliott ACEEE

Ron Gecan CBO

Matthew Hansen National Energy Board Canada

Elke Hodson DOE-EPSA

John Larson Rhodium Group

Robert Lung ORAU

Francis Memoli Tenova Inc.

John Meyer Leidos

Shashank Mohan Rhodium Group

Martha Moore American Chemistry Council

Willian Morrow Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Jill Quick RBAC Inc.

Michael Russo Itron

Sugandha Tuladhar NERA

Walt Tunnessen EPA

Davis Turpin Agenda 2020

EIA Attendees (in person)

Bob Adler

Vipin Arora

Christopher Dickerson

Tom Lorenz

Ian Mead

Farah Naz

Paul Otis

Kelly Perl