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Focus on Energy, Columbia Water & Light, and utilities from the Energize Connecticut program share how they integrate and implement the Home Energy Score and Home Performance with ENERGY STAR programs.
This webinar covers the Multifamily Energy Efficiency Retrofits: Barriers and Opportunities for Deep Energy Savings report published in 2016.n
High energy users in single-family homes present the greatest opportunities for energy and cost savings, yet relatively little is known about what is happening in these homes or how energy efficiency and utility programs can engage these consumers. In this on-demand webcast, hear the results of a groundbreaking field study of 100 high-consumption homes in Minnesota. The webcast will discuss possible causes and the technical and behavioral opportunities to reduce usage. Also, it will introduce the households studied to provide a holistic introduction to this utility customer group.
This on-demand webinar discusses what residential customers in Wisconsin, the Midwest, and the nation have to say about energy topics. Learn about the Energy Center of Wisconsin's (now Seventhwave's) research on consumer perceptions and actions concerning their energy use at home based on the 2011 Midwest Energy Survey.
This webcast provides an overview of community-based social marketing and provides examples from programs that have used it.
Three-part webinar series. Part I discusses how to design and implement funding programs, line up partners, and gain support for clean energy programs through both conventional and non-conventional methods. Part II discusses how to locate available sources of funding. Part III explains how to leverage existing funds and make clean energy investments more affordable for clean energy program audiences.
This webcast (Part I of a three-part series) covers the big picture questions that local governments should consider for funding clean energy programs. What resources are available? What are the program priorities? How can these programs pay for themselves? What funding is available? The webinar guides local governments through these and other questions in the context of their own unique circumstances and illustrates the concepts through case studies that explore how local governments have used both conventional and unconventional methods to gain support, line up partners, and design and implement their funding programs.
This webcast covers information about designing effective incentives to drive residential retrofit program participation.
Webcast on the DOE Residential Retrofit Program Design Guide, which focuses on the key elements and design characteristics of building and maintaining a successful residential upgrade program.
This webcast provides information on why outreach is important for program success and how programs can promote their efforts.
This webcast offers information on successful marketing strategies, as well as design considerations and market research insights for creating and marketing successful projects in specific neighborhoods.
This presentation describes a Massachusetts study on low-income weatherization, including its cost-effectiveness and impacts on health and safety.
This presentation covers lesson learned for PACE from the Toledo Port Authority, innovative real estate finance solutions from the Ygrene Energy Fund, and financing energy improvements on utility bills.
This presentation features Better Buildings Challenge Multifamily partners across the country sharing what's worked and what hasn't in residential rehabilitation and weatherization of income-eligible, public housing multifamily buildings. Speakers shared case studies about their properties that have undergone upgrades during the past year and the lessons learned.
This presentation describes National Grid's experience with customer behavior and engagement through the implementation of its smart grid pilot program.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call summary focused on leveraging smart tech, health and/or utility data to increase participation in multifamily energy efficiency programs. It featured speakers from The Network for Energy, Water and Health in
Affordable Buildings, New Ecology, Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, and Emerald Cities Collaborative.
This presentation covers control technologies, such as smart thermostats, and the opportunities they provide for program evaluation, monitoring and verification.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on best practices on upgrades for zero energy ready homes. Speakers include Florida Solar Energy Center and BIRAenergy.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on key challenges and opportunities to deploy interactive engagement strategies including customer segmentation, loyalty and reward programs, and gamification. It features speakers from Fiveworx, ICF International, and Cool Choices.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how recent policy changes have impacted residential energy efficiency program implementation. Speakers include Efficiency Maine, Michigan Environmental Council, and Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on communicating non-energy benefits that homeowners and building owners are most interested in. Speakers include Elevate Energy, Green & Healthy Homes Initiative, and Skumatz Economic Research Associates, Inc.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how energy efficiency could be used to achieve other goals. It features speakers from the City of Orlando and Seattle City Light.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on obtaining and using energy efficiency data through tools like the Green Button, smart connected thermostat pilots, and operational ratings of homes to evaluate and/or enhance programs.
This presentation describes non-energy benefits from energy efficiency upgrades in low-income households, draws from research on health and related benefits of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP), and tailors insights to Massachusetts.
The Better Buildings Neighborhood Program featured 41 competitively selected grantees that developed sustainable energy efficiency upgrade programs across the U.S. from 2010-14. This presentation covers what worked and what didn’t, and key success factors identified by an independent evaluation.
This webcast in a multi-part series highlighting efforts by state and local agencies, non-profits, and utilities to bring energy efficiency and renewable energy (EE/RE) to low-income communities.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how to assess, reassess, and initiate organization partnerships.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on marketing techniques for lower income and other underrepresented populations.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on approaches to generate demand for energy efficiency upgrades at multifamily buildings.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on types of incentives.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how energy efficiency initiatives relate to real estate marketing.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on new and updated revenue strategies.
This peer exchange call summary focused on grant funding investments, program design and revenue streams in the post-grant period.
This peer exchange call summary focused on sales training assistance programs for contractors.
Listening to Your Workforce: Lessons from Pilot Programs and Other Approaches For Workforce Feedback
This peer exchange call summary focused on creating a dialogue between contractors, trainers and jobseekers about program design/implementation and results of workforce feedback.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on challenges and strategies related to split incentives for tenants and landlords.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how loan performance data is tracked and analyzed, and what the data shows.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on choosing and developing program evaluation.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on the features and eligibility of the PowerSaver Loan Program.
This peer exchange call summary focused on strategies, opportunities and focuses on shared space and technology in multi-family buildings and in-unit upgrades.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on gathering and communicating loan performance data.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on working with the real estate sector to promote and drive demand for energy efficiency.
This peer exchange call summary focused on the relationship between contract pricing and customers.
This peer exchange call summary focused on moving from assessments to upgrades in multifamily buildings.
The Regional Evaluation, Measurement and Verification Forum (EM&V Forum) works to support use and transparency of current best practices in evaluation, measurement, verification, and reporting of energy and demand savings, costs, avoided emissions and other impacts of energy efficiency, while also advancing the development of strategies and tools to meet evolving policy needs for efficiency.
REED serves as a dashboard for the consistent reporting of electric and natural gas energy efficiency program energy and demand savings and associated costs, avoided emissions and job impacts across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region. REED is a project of NEEP's Regional Evaluation, Measurement and Verification Forum (EM&V Forum) and is based on the EM&V Forum's Common Statewide Energy Efficiency Reporting Guidelines.
This toolkit describes how to strengthen residential energy efficiency program outreach and marketing efforts through data-driven, tailored efforts to change behaviors. One of the greatest challenges facing the residential energy efficiency market is motivating people to take steps to save energy. This toolkit provides guidance, resources, and examples for applying community-based social marketing (CBSM) to increase the number of homes that are energy efficient.
The Small Town Energy Program (STEP) toolkit gives a complete overview of STEP from planning to implementation. It also includes access to a wide variety of materials developed by the program, including: local asset materials, partner materials, personnel materials, program administrative materials, outreach materials, and surveys. STEP has posted these toolkit documents with the hope that it will assist other small towns and communities in building and running more energy efficiency programs.
Efficiency Maine developed this online portal, where many of its program forms are available for download (e.g., program overviews and manuals, participation agreements, and related application materials).
Each ResStock fact sheet presents the potential for residential energy and utility bill savings for the state. The top ten energy savings home improvements are highlighted.
This study provides an overview of practices for quantifying and reporting avoided energy-water costs from demand-side measures. It also summarizes the regulatory guidance for incorporating water savings into cost-effectiveness screening for energy efficiency programs.
Cool Choices layered an experiment atop four engagement games where they used game mechanics to identify high energy users and encourage those high energy users (along with other game participants) to participate in Focus on Energy residential programs. This research effort, called "Find and Flip," explored whether a gamification strategy could identify high energy users and then drive them to Focus on Energy programs.
This report summarizes research assessing national and regional residential behavior-based energy efficiency (BBEE) programs and activities to identify best practices. The report emphasizes that a basic foundation for behavior change is providing energy consumers with feedback on their energy consumption, with customer engagement strategies and tactics employed to get customers to take action and drive greater levels of energy savings.
Many states have adopted policies intended to overcome the barriers that limit the more efficient use of electricity. Yet because such efforts have not addressed the lack of consumer information and motivation to improve efficiency, many opportunities for energy efficiency remain untapped. To help address that problem, states, utilities, and other energy efficiency service providers have begun to develop new approaches to informing and motivating customers based on behavioral economics and psychology research. This report describes three broad strategies that states can use to engage consumers' participation in energy efficiency programs: provide direct consumer information and feedback on energy use, influence social norms; and match messages and messengers to target audiences. Recommendations for actions that governors can take within the context of each of those three strategies are provided.
This paper is a baseline assessment of electric and natural gas energy efficiency programs that target low-income households in the largest metropolitan areas in the country. ACEEE surveyed over 70 electric and natural gas utilities on their 2015 low-income program spending, energy savings, customer participation, and best practices.
This report looks into residential lighting savings assumptions found in Technical Reference Manuals (TRMs) throughout the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions to understand what values were being used for key metrics such as hours of use, delta watt, and measure life. It provides the opportunity to view completed Standardized Methods Forms to compare evaluation methodology and results.
This guide supports the development, maintenance, and use of accurate and reliable Technical Reference Manuals (TRMs). TRMs provide information to estimate the energy and demand savings of end-use energy efficiency measures associated with utility customer-funded efficiency programs. This guide describes existing TRMs in the United States and provides recommendations for TRM best practices. It also offers related background information on energy efficiency; evaluation, measurement, and verification; and TRM basics.
Home energy management systems (HEMS) continue to present a unique opportunity and challenge. While energy savings have been documented for many HEMS, some of the most promising opportunities from these devices and systems can be found in the internet of things (IoT) and smart home technologies. This report presents market updates, a regional goal, and strategies to drive market transformation and achieve the many benefits from HEMS and the Smart Energy Home.
This guide identifies 12 best practices for policymakers, regulators, and program administrators to help building owners invest to increase the energy efficiency of multifamily affordable housing.
There are more than 17 million multifamily households nationwide, yet they remain a significant and mostly untapped opportunity for energy efficiency gains. Many cities and states that have embraced energy retrofitting as a job creator and boon to both the environment and economy have yet to address potential savings in multifamily properties, primarily because of obstacles not faced by single family and commercial properties. This paper discusses two barriers -- a lack of information and financing -- that stand in the way of multifamily energy retrofits.
This study assesses and monetizes a sub-set of non-energy benefits experienced by recipients of energy efficiency services residing in income-eligible households in MA, including: reduced asthma; reduced cold-related thermal stress; reduced heat-related thermal stress; reduced missed days at work; reduced use of short-term, high interest loans; increased home productivity due to improvements in sleep; reduced carbon monoxide poisoning; and reduced home fires.
This report identifies sustainable funding sources for asthma-related home interventions. It examines the business case and return on investment for interventions that remedy triggers that can exacerbate asthma.
This paper found that improved health outcomes and more stable, productive homes in primarily African American, low-income neighborhoods are related to the mitigation of asthma triggers and home-based environmental health hazards and that upstream investments in low-income housing have the potential for generating sustainable returns on investment and cost savings related to improved health, productivity gains, and wealth retention due to energy conservation.
This study is a review of non-energy benefits related to residential weatherization programs. The study estimates the value, in dollar and percentage terms, of non-energy benefits from weatherization programs, and summarizes the ranges and typical values for non-energy benefits. Recommendations for a non-energy benefits strategy for Maryland are provided.
This report analyzes and develops estimates of non-energy impacts that could be included in cost effectiveness analyses for the EmPOWER Maryland energy efficiency programs. Four non-energy benefits are included in this analysis: air emissions, comfort, commercial operations and maintenance (O&M), and utility bill arrearages. In all four cases, a recommended value and methods for including them in future EMPOWER costs effectiveness analyses are provided.
This document features lessons learned shared by Better Buildings Residential Network members during Peer Exchange Calls held during Autumn 2016.
This report updates ACEEE's 2013 assessment of multifamily energy efficiency programs in US metropolitan areas with the most multifamily households. Using housing, policy, and utility-sector data from 2014 and 2015, this report documents how these programs have changed in the context of dynamic housing markets and statewide policy environments. The report also offers an analysis of the number, spending, offerings, and targeted participants of current programs and their potential for further expansion.
The report, based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and a survey of tens of thousands of businesses across the country, provides detailed breakdowns of clean energy jobs not available previously, and it was developed and released in connection with a major U.S. Department of Energy study of all energy jobs in America.
Residential air-source heat pumps (ASHP) are a heating and air-conditioning technology that use electricity to provide a combination of space heating and cooling to homes. A new generation of ASHPs has come to market over the past five years. This report evaluates the key market barriers as well as potential opportunities to leverage. Based on an assessment of the regional ASHP market, it is clear that while ASHPs have established a viable and growing market, there remains a significant opportunity to further accelerate adoption of the technology and in the process achieve energy and cost savings to the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region.
This report examines the history of pay-for-performance (P4P) energy efficiency approaches. As the report describes, there is a diverse spectrum of pay-for-performance programs but, at the most basic level, these programs track and reward energy savings as they occur, usually by examining data from a building's energy meters -- as opposed to the more common approach of estimating savings in advance of installation and offering upfront rebates or incentives in a lump-sum payment. The report finds that P4P has some important opportunities for increasing energy savings, but also key limitations that will need to be better understood through piloting and experimentation.