LBL-37383
UC-
1600
EFFICIENCY
IMPROVEMENTS
IN
U.S.
OFFICE
EQUIPMENT:
EXPECTED
POLICY
IMPACTS
AND
UNCERTAINTIES
Jonathan
G.
Koomey, Michael Cramer, MaryAnn Piette, and Joseph
H.
Eto
Energy Analysis Program
Energy
and
Environment Division
Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
University of California
Berkeley, CA
94720
December
1995
This
work
was
supported
by
the Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency
and
Renewable Energy, Office of
Building Technologies of the
U.S.
Department
of
Energy under Contract
No.
DE-AC03-76SFW08.
DISCLAIMER
This
report
was
prepared
as
an
account of
work
sponsored
by an agency
of
the
United
States
Government Neither the
United
States Government nor any agency thereof, nor
any of their employees, mdke any
warranty,
express
or
implied,
or
assumes
any
legal
liabili-
ty
or
responsibility
for the accuracy, completeness,
or
usefulness
of any infomaion, appa-
ratus,
product,
or
pnwmss
disclosed,
or
represents
that
its
use
would
not
infringe privately
owned
rights.
Reference herein
to
any
specific
commercial
product,
process,
or
service
by
trade
name,
trademark, manufacturer,
or
otherwise
does
not necessarily
cor&tute
or
imply
its
endorsement,
recommendation,
or
favoring by the United
States
Government
or
any
agency thereof. The
views
and opinions
of
authors
expressed
herein
do
not necessar-
ily state
or
reflect those
of
the United
States
Government
or
any
agency thereof.
DXSCLAXMER
Portions
of
this
document
may
be
illegible
in
electronic
image
products.
hags
are
pduced
from
the
best
available
original
dolrument.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This
report
describes a detailed end-use forecast of office equipment energy
use
for the
US
commercial sector. We explore the likely impacts of the US Environmental Protection
Agency's
ENERGY
STAR
office equipment program and the potential impacts of advanced
technologies.
The
ENERGY STAR
program encourages manufacturers to voluntarily
incorporate power saving features into personal computers, monitors, printers, copiers,
and fax machines in exchange for allowing manufacturers to use the
EPA
ENERGY
STAR
logo
in
their
advertising campaigns. The Advanced technology case
assumes
that the most
energy efficient current technologies
are
implemented regardless of cost.
The main findings from our analysis
are
as
follows:
Wice
equipment currently
uses
about
7%
of
all
commercial sector electricity,
with
that fraction projected to grow to
7.6%
by
2010.
Total
Electricity
used
by office
equipment
is
projected to grow from
58
TWh in
1990
to
78
TWh
in
2010
in
the
absence of
ENERGY
STAR
or any other government policies.
While
total energy
use
for office equipment has grown rapidly in recent years, this
growth
is
likely to slow in the next decade (even in the Business-as-usual case)
because the
US
commercial sector market
is
becoming saturated (especially for
PC
CPUs
and monitors)
and
because mainframe and minicomputer energy
use
per unit
is
declining quickly.
The
likely
energy and dollar savings
in
the commercial sector from the
ENERGY
STAR
program
are
significant on
a
national scale.
Total
electricity savings will
range from
10
to
23
TWh/year in
2010,
and will most likely be about
17
TWh/year
by
2010.
The most likely level of savings represents the annual output
of
three
lo00
MW
power plants, and results in net benefits to society exceeding
$1
billion
per
year
after the year
2000.
The cost of achieving
ENERGY STAR
efficiency levels
is
estimated
by
the
manufacturers to
be
negligible, while the cumulative direct cost of funding the
ENERGY
STAR
Program
is
on the order of
a
few million dollars.
This
policy
therefore saves
US
society large amounts of money with minimal expenditure of
public funds.
e
In
the worst case, the
ENERGY
STAR
programs should result in commercial sector
energy savings of about
10
TWh/year in
2010.
Even
in
this
case,
energy and dollar
savings
will substantially exceed expected costs to society.
The Advanced case demonstrates that significant additional savings may be
achieved from advanced technologies
if
these technologies can
be
reduced in cost
from current levels. This case results in savings beyond the
ENERGY STAR
Most-
Likely case of about
29
TWMyear by
2010.
These savings are worth an additional
$2.3
billion per year
in
2010.
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