Sustainability of Energy Efficiency Investment to Local Manufacturing

The main goal of this study is to estimate the economic and environmental impacts of energy efficiency investment on the local manufacturing using data with different granularity. A systematic framework is developed by using multiple scale/layer of data. Result shows that a $14M investment in HVAC upgrade to reduce energy and cost in the economy of the Montgomery County, Ohio can result in a total local economic impact of $22M. Analysis provides insight into the most important types of economic effects to the local industries. From an environmental perspective, short term economy-wide carbon dioxide emissions increase because of the increased community-wide economic activities spurred by the production from local manufacturers and installation of energy efficiency measures, however the resulting energy savings provide continuous carbon dioxide reduction for various target savings.