California manufacturers produce more gross domestic product (GDP) for every dollar spent on electricity than manufacturers in any other state except Connecticut, according to Next 10’s California’s Manufacturing and Benefits of Energy Efficiency, a new issue brief prepared by Collaborative Economics.
Using data released this year from the 2012 US Economic Census, the brief revealed that manufacturers generate $59 in state GDP for every dollar spent on electricity, compared to $38 for the rest of the nation.
California ranks sixth in the country when looking at overall energy productivity in this sector, which includes the cost of electricity and purchased fuels to produce heat or power. For every dollar spent on energy overall, California manufacturers produce $35 of GDP, compared to an average of $23 for the rest of the United States.
From 2002 to 2012 — a period when California passed and implemented pioneering climate and clean energy legislation — the state’s average manufacturing electricity purchases fell from 1.3 percent to 0.9 percent of total operating costs. That was a larger improvement than anywhere else in the country.
In 2013, California had the third lowest electricity bill in the nation as a percent of the total state economy. Additionally, California’s residential, industrial, and commercial average monthly bills stayed relatively stable between 2003 and 2013.
By comparison, some states experienced large jumps in average monthly bills over the same time period, such as New York and Florida in the industrial sector (+78 percent and +35 percent, respectively) and Texas in the commercial sector (+25 percent).
The brief also found that growth in manufacturing sector GDP in California has outpaced the rest of the nation, with the state realizing a 15 percent increase over the last ten years. That is compared to a five percent increase, on average, for the rest of the United States.
