Surprisingly, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 does not include any support for industrial energy efficiency.

What is included is $128 billion for renewable energy and grid energy storage, $30 billion for nuclear power, $13 billion for electric vehicle incentives, $14 billion for home energy efficiency upgrades, $22 billion for home energy supply improvements, and $37 billion for advanced manufacturing.

This is the single largest investment in climate and energy in American history putting the United States on a pathway to achieving the climate goals, including a net-zero economy by 2050.

I'd like to show the impact of just one segment of industrial energy efficiency, an area of my expertise: Industrial exhaust ventilation. I will demonstrate that implementing on-demand industrial ventilation would save 66% of the electricity compared to traditional ventilation systems.

As ventilation fans are the largest motors in factories, and they run full shift time, electricity savings are huge: If implemented on all US exhaust ventilation systems, they would save 137 TWh of electricity per year and, at the same time, cost just 28% compared to clean electricity investment into new generation by wind turbines combined with battery storage.