Project

Failure to Act: The Economic Impact of Current Investment Trends in Electricity Infrastructure 2012

By EDR Group (now EBP) for the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)

For the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), EDR Group prepared a four-part economic report series, showing the economic consequences of continued underinvestment in our Nation's infrastructure, and the economic gains that could be made by 2020. Failure to Act: The Economic Impact of Current Investment Trends in Electricity Infrastructure, the third report in the series, discusses EDR Group's assessment of the long term economic consequences of current electricity infrastructure investment patterns and funding levels. There is a growing gap between needs and available infrastructure, and the study examines ways that households and businesses will face higher costs if sufficient electricity generation, transmission, and distribution systems are not available in the future.

Based on current investment trends, the national electricity infrastructure gap is estimated to be $107B by 2020, or just over $11B per year. By 2020, shortfalls in grid investments are expected to account for almost 90% of the investment gap with nearly $95B in additional dollars needed to modernize the grid. Closing the electricity investment gap would lead to fewer brownouts and blackouts and save US businesses $126 billion, prevent the loss of 529,000 jobs and $656 billion in personal income losses for American families.

This is the third report in ASCE’s Failure to Act series prepared by EDR Group. The first report, Failure to Act: The Economic Impact of Current Investment Trends in Surface Transportation Infrastructure, encompassed highways, bridges, rail, and transit.  The second report in the series, Failure to Act: The Economic Impact of Current Investment Trends in Water and Wastewater Treatment Infrastructure, focuses on the pipes, treatment plants, pumping stations, and other infrastructure that make up the nation’s public drinking-water and wastewater systems. Failure to Act: The Economic Impact of Current Investment Trends in Water and Wastewater Treatment Infrastructure focuses on the pipes, treatment plants, pumping stations, and other infrastructure that make up the nation’s public drinking-water and wastewater systems.  The fourth report, Failure to Act: The Economic Impact of Current Investment Trends in Airports, Inland Waterways and Marine Ports Infrastructure, focuses on the pipes, treatment plants, pumping stations, and other infrastructure that make up the nation’s public drinking-water and wastewater systems. Following the release of the four reports, a Failure to Act summary report that looks at infrastructure overall was released as well.