Improving the Efficiency of Electricity Use in Manufacturing

Largely in response to the energy shocks of the 1970s, U.S. manufacturers reduced their real fossil fuel intensity (the weighted-average ratio of energy use to production in each subsector) by 50% and achieved zero growth in real electricity intensity. In the future, adoption of new technologies for increasing the efficiency of electricity use is likely to continue to be as important as new modes of electrification, implying that the real electricity intensity will be stable; but the outcome depends on electricity pricing and other policies, public and private.