By TIM RONALDSON | Business Trends

The saying goes: April showers bring May flowers.

In the South, May brings both flowers and hot air, and in turn, an increased demand for air conditioning.

Environmentalists and meteorologists around the globe have backed smarter energy consumption for quite a few years now, with legislators and the private sector jumping on board in the last couple, citing benefits such as climate control and overall public wellness as reasons to be more energy efficient.

But a recent study about energy efficiency in the South highlights two main components that could open the eyes of business owners and employees alike: Improved energy efficiency could not only produce long-term savings against a business’ bottom line but could also create job growth. Region-wide, aggressive adoption of energy-efficiency programs could lower utility bills by $41 billion and create 380,000 new jobs by 2020, according to the study – “Energy Efficiency in the South,” released in April and conducted by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Duke University’s Nicholas Institute. South Carolina alone is projected to be able to lower utility bills by $1.8 billion and create 13,400 new jobs by 2020.

“An aggressive commitment to energy efficiency could be an economic windfall for the South,” Marilyn Brown, co-lead researcher of the study from the Georgia Institute of Technology, said. “Such a shift would lower energy bills for cash-strapped consumers and businesses and create more new jobs for Southern workers.”

The Palmetto State ranks higher than the national average for energy intensity – the ratio of the state’s energy consumption to its Gross State Product – based primarily on its reliance on industrial energy and the need for South Carolina, and the rest of the state, to cool their homes and workplaces through electricity, according to the study. The state consumes more nuclear power (53 percent) and less natural gas (5 percent) than the rest of the South and the nation as a whole when compared on a level of overall energy consumption.

With total energy consumption projected to increase 6 percent by 2030, the study says it has become ever important for the state to aggressively develop energy-efficient policies. Currently, the study ranks South Carolina 37th out of 51 (including Washington, D.C.) for its adoption and implementation of such policies based on six areas – utility and public benefits, transportation, building energy codes, combined heat and power, state government initiatives and appliance efficiency standards.

With the adoption of energy-efficient technologies in the residential, commercial and industrial sectors, South Carolina could reduce its total energy consumption 11 percent by 2030, the study said, and the lure for potential adopters is that the initiatives are also projected to be cost-effective.

“The set of energy efficiency policies we examined are also highly cost effective,” Etan Gumerman, co-lead researcher of the study from Duke University’s Nicholas Institute, said. “On average, each dollar invested in energy efficiency over the next 20 years will reap $2.25 in benefits.”

The implementation of appliance standards and retrofit policies in the state’s commercial sector could reduce energy consumption by 14 percent in 2020 and 21 percent in 2030, the study found. In 2020, the sector could save an estimated 41 TBtu (41 trillion Btus), or the same amount of energy that 1,200 Wal-Mart stores use per year.

The study states that the biggest opportunities for commercial energy savings could come from utilizing geothermal heat pumps, which could reduce consumption by up to 44 percent compared to air-source heat pumps and by up to 72 percent compared to electric resistance heating with standard air-conditioning equipment. The change in technology would also provide a long lifetime of 20 to 25 years.

For the industrial sector, the use of super boilers, an advanced heat recovery system, would provide a sizeable opportunity for savings. The super boilers represent more than 95 percent fuel-to-steam efficiency, the study states.

“If utilized effectively, the state’s substantial energy-efficiency resources could reverse the long-term trend of ever-expanding energy consumption,” according to the report. “With a sustained and concerted effort to use energy more wisely, South Carolina could create new job opportunities, and reduce its environmental footprint.”

The full report can be found online at www.seealliance.org/programs/research.php.