Several successful residential energy efficiency programs offered multiple types of home energy assessments to appeal to a wider spectrum of homeowner interests and needs. These ranged from online home assessments to brief walk-throughs to full diagnostic testing. A comprehensive evaluation of over...
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Home energy assessments and upgrades can offer more than just energy savings benefits. They can make homes safer, enhance home value, and reduce health risks for residents. Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners found that emphasizing the full range of benefits that upgrades offered helped...
Without an incentive, homeowners and contractors may limit themselves to smaller upgrade projects. Programs in search of more energy savings have found that some homeowners already interested in an upgrade are amenable to a bigger upgrade when coupled with better financing terms or larger rebates...
Homeowners do not benefit from access to financing if they don’t know about or understand options available to them. Contractors are often the primary transaction point for selling upgrades, and many programs have found that ongoing collaboration with contractors through sales training, regular...
Complicated loan and program application processes have deterred many potential customers from following through with an upgrade. Delays and overly burdensome requirements raise barriers to participation. Many programs have successfully employed strategies to reduce the number of requirements that...
Publication Date
Organizations or Programs
New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA),
Community Energy Challenge,
Community Power Works
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on quality assurance and control, standardization of upgrades and workforce expectations.
Publication Date
Organizations or Programs
National Grid,
Southern California Edison,
Puget Sound Energy,
Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD),
Commonwealth Edison Company (ComED)
This paper explores ways in which program administrators are using social norms to spur behavior change and, as a result, curb energy use. In recent years, home energy reports (HER) programs have applied the concept of social norms to the energy efficiency context. These feedback programs inform customers of how their energy consumption compares to their neighbors' and provide other information about their usage, with the goal of enticing customers to change their energy use behavior to improve their relative neighborhood ranking.