Energy efficiency is increasingly viewed as a viable air quality strategy because it addresses multiple pollutants simultaneously and reduces the total cost to provide power to customers. Despite the US Environmental Protection Agency’s support for energy efficiency as an air quality improvement strategy, many state air regulators struggle to quantify the impacts of specific energy efficiency policies or programs with a level of rigor suitable for State Implementation Plan (SIP) or other regulatory purposes.

The State and Local Energy Efficiency Action Network presents this webinar for viewers to learn how and where state air quality regulators can find information to support the use of energy efficiency to achieve emissions reductions. Participants will learn about key sources of efficiency savings information—at the national, regional, and state levels—and about ways to access and apply it. The presentations will be of particular relevance to jurisdictions considering the use of end-use (e.g., buildings) energy efficiency in their criteria pollutant State Implementation Plans (SIPs), and to states interested in quantifying the co-benefits of efficiency.

Drawing on RAP’s Quantifying the Air Quality Impacts of Energy Efficiency Policies and Programs paper, John Shenot, RAP associate, identifis useful data sources, and outlines four basic steps for quantifying the air quality impacts of energy efficiency policies and programs. Cecily McChalicher, REED Manager at the Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships, Inc., discusses the Regional Energy Efficiency Database (REED)—a new energy efficiency reporting and data platform for New England and Mid-Atlantic states.