Full Title: The Energy Efficiency Gap and Energy Price Responsiveness in Food Processing
Author(s): Gale Boyd, Matt Doolin
Publisher(s): U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
Publication Date: October 22, 2020
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
To better understand this, EIA commissioned Leidos, Inc., to prepare the following report The Energy Efficiency Gap and Energy Price Responsiveness in Food Processing. The report provides an analysis of this efficiency gap, as well as elasticities calculated in the stochastic frontier energy demand estimation process, which allow EIA to estimate how much of an efficiency improvement may be available in the food processing industry. In simulating efficiency improvements (by setting the target level of efficiency based on a percentile of the cumulative efficiency distribution), the estimate of potential reduction in energy use is by definition smaller but empirically more reasonable. The report finds that a practical improvement modeled by bringing the bottom half of the distribution up to the median can result in a 13.0% reduction in the efficiency gap when averaged across all models. If the lower end of the distribution is brought up to the ENERGY STAR® rating of the 75th percentile, the reduction in the efficiency gap increases to an average of 15.5%, and when targeting the 95th percentile, the reduction in the efficiency gap increases to 20.0%.