California earned the top score in the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy’s 2025 State Energy Efficiency Scorecard, released March 18.
The scorecard showed state spending on efficiency rebounded last year to set a record of $8.8 billion, with 90% of the increase coming from five states: Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. California scored 93.5 out of 100 points in ACEEE’s rankings, followed by Massachusetts at 80.5 and New York at 79.5, with Maryland and Vermont tied for fourth place at 77.
“Leading states are reducing costs and cutting pollution through energy savings measures, but many other states are stagnating,” Mark Kresowik, ACEEE senior policy director and lead author of the scorecard, said in a statement. “American families have endured years of rising costs and need relief. Energy efficiency upgrades lower utility bills, and now is the time for state policymakers and regulators to help more families see those savings.”
Louisiana was the most improved state, jumping nine places to number 37 after it adopted a strong building code, which was primarily motivated by skyrocketing insurance costs for homes due to extreme weather, ACEEE said.
Wyoming was at the bottom of the list at just 5.5 points, with Alabama (6 points) and Mississippi (6.5 points) coming in just ahead of it.
Colorado reached the top 10 for the first time, jumping six spots to reach number seven after it adopted policies for clean vehicles and a new efficiency standard to cut energy consumption in large buildings and enacted a range of efficiency standards.
“The top states are consistently advancing efficiency across every category, typically receiving at least half of the available points in each sector,” the report said. “The second tier is making considerable progress, but more inconsistently across sectors.”
ACEEE has been releasing the scorecard for 16 years, and it sees a new focus on efficiency due to rising energy bills, with a bigger focus on helping low-income consumers. Efficiency programs invested more than $2 billion last year to make efficiency upgrades that cut their monthly bills, but more than 75% of that was from just four states: California, Massachusetts, Michigan and New York.
“In the wake of rapidly rising energy prices and electricity bills, several states are recognizing energy efficiency’s important role in keeping energy affordable by helping homeowners and businesses reduce costs, by improving living conditions, and by creating jobs, all while supporting increasingly ambitious state and local goals to reduce carbon emissions,” the report said.
States are ranked in six primary policy areas: utility and public benefits programs, transportation policies, building efficiency policies, state government-led policies, industrial energy efficiency and appliance and equipment standards.
Points used to be allocated solely to policies that saved the most energy, but since 2022, the scorecard has started including carbon benefits, which means that policies such as vehicle electrification and building decarbonization generate more points.
States can get 100 points, with 29 from utility programs, 26 from transportation programs, 24 relating to building efficiency policies, nine points to state-led initiatives, six points for industrial programs and six points for state appliance and equipment standards.
Most states have room for improvement on the building energy code because only six have adopted the latest model. Nine states have no code at all, though among them, Colorado requires localities to adopt building codes.
The codes apply to new buildings and can require existing buildings to save energy. Four states and the District of Columbia have adopted standards requiring large buildings to cut energy consumption and climate pollution over time.
A dozen states have adopted clean vehicle standards first developed by California, requiring automakers to sell more zero-emissions cars. An additional 15 states have signed deals to start moving medium- and heavy-duty vehicles to zero-emissions.
