Water use accounts for about 20 percent of California’s electricity use and 30 percent of natural gas used by businesses and homes according to Alvar Escriva-Bou at the the Public Policy Institute of California. At the same time the water sector can be the most cost effective source for increasing energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.Escriva-Bou also notes, “some residential ‘end uses’ of water—faucets, showers, and clothes washers—are energy hogs, accounting for 42 percent of all energy used in the water cycle. And in total, the residential, industrial, and commercial end uses of water account for more than 85 percent of energy used in the water sector. By comparison, supplying, pumping, and treating urban water make up about 5 percent.”
You can read more at the PPIC blog here. You can also read PPIC’s full report, California’s Water: Energy and Water here.