PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island ranked third among the most energy efficient states in the U.S., with Massachusetts topping the list, according to a report released Tuesday by WalletHub.
WalletHub, a personal finance website with a focus on reviews for financial advisers, compared the efficiency of energy consumption in 48 U.S. states, excluding Alaska and Hawaii from the analysis due to data limitations, across two key dimensions: home energy efficiency and auto energy efficiency.
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Rhode Island ranked third with an overall score of 82.10, ranking seventh for home energy efficiency and fifth for auto energy efficiency, which includes vehicle-fuel efficiency and transportation efficiency.
Massachusetts was ranked as the best state for energy efficiency with a total score of 86.57, ranking ninth for home energy efficiency and first for auto energy efficiency. The Bay State was followed by New York, which ranked second with an overall score of 83.89.
Across the rest of New England, Vermont ranked fifth, Connecticut was ninth, New Hampshire was 14th and Maine was 16th.
The three states with the least-efficient energy consumption were West Virginia, Alabama and South Carolina, with overall scores of 33.57, 29.93 and 22.99 respectively.
WalletHub said it calculated the ratio of total residential energy consumption to annual degree days to obtain the home energy efficiency, while for auto energy efficiency it calculated vehicle fuel efficiency – the ratio of the annual vehicle miles driven by gallons of gasoline consumed – and transportation efficiency, measuring annual vehicle miles driven per capita.
It used data from the U.S. Census Bureau, National Climatic Data Center, Energy Information Administration and the U.S. Department of Transportation for its ranking.
The full report can be found here.
Claudia Chiappa is a PBN staff writer. Contact her at Chiappa@PBN.com.
