§18773 Expansion of Energy Consumption Surveys

Summary

The Administrator must, no later than 2 years after November 15, 2021, expand three energy surveys—the Manufacturing Energy Consumption Survey, the Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey, and the Residential Energy Consumption Survey—to add data about how energy is actually used. The goal is to find chances to save energy and money, spot changing energy patterns, and better track small electrical loads in homes and buildings. To do this, the Administrator must collect more and more frequent end-use data, use new methods to get better data while making it easier for people to respond (for example by using other existing data and, if possible, online or real-time reporting), report local economic and environmental effects (including energy reliability and places with high household energy costs), and make the data easier to use, such as interactive maps and modern digital distribution. For manufacturing, the survey must give more regional detail, show process heat by required temperatures at large plants, collect information on switching fuel sources and using electricity, biofuels, hydrogen, or other fuels for process heat, track demand response use, and identify current or potential local industrial clusters for clean manufacturing infrastructure (like hydrogen and carbon capture systems). For homes, the survey must give more detail by State, building type, income, rural location, and other demographics, and report household electrical capacity, access to utility programs and bill credits, regional electricity fuel mixes, and household energy burden by area, by end-use (electricity, heating, etc.), and for groups that tend to have higher burdens (low income, minority, manufactured or multifamily housing, fixed or retirement income, renters, and other factors).