This presentation focused on the Guide for Benchmarking Residential Program Progress with Examples and its step-by-step guidance for setting up an effective benchmarking process.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on evaluation, measurement, and verification of predicted/modeled savings from home energy upgrades.

This presentation covers the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development's Multi-family Energy Efficiency and Housing Affordability (MEEHA) programs.

This presentation covers the features of well-designed energy efficiency programs for multifamily affordable housing.

Home Performance (HP) XML is transforming the way home energy upgrade programs collect and transfer information from one software system to another, leading to improved contractor satisfaction, lower administrative costs, and technological advancements in the home performance industry. This presentation provides an overview of HPXML and its benefits, and discuss how the data standard is facilitating technological and process improvements among home energy upgrade programs and software developers in the United States.

This presentation covers Elevate Energy's full service comprehensive approach for improving low income multifamily housing.

This is a recording of a webinar from August 2015. Home Performance with ENERGY STAR hosted a panel on HPXML; the value it can bring to businesses and implementation methods. Interested organizations can use this resource to learn more about HPXML and its potential benefits.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on strategies and challenges of on-bill financing programs.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how to market energy efficiency upgrades in the multifamily housing sector.

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 how programs are devising plans for creating a contractor revenue stream and potential fee structures.

This peer exchange call summary focused on the background and features of the PowerSaver loan program.

This peer exchange call summary focused on developing rebate/incentive programs to generate a demand for sustainable programs and products.

This peer exchange call summary focused on the challenges and effective combinations of quality assurance strategies.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on energy modeling in multifamily homes.

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 evaluating and demonstrating the cost-effectiveness of energy upgrades to programs.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on strategies in building interest in and introducing energy efficiency to affordable housing.

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 summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on energy benchmarking and building disclosure policies.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on implementing and generating revenue from employer-based programs.

This peer exchange call summary focused on bond funding.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on gathering and communicating loan performance data.

This peer exchange call summary focused on unique fee-for-service revenues as related to program sustainability.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on shared funding arrangements with contractors.

This peer exchange call summary focused on lender-based fees and sharing costs with lending partners.

This peer exchange call summary focused on tracking and using data to support revenue streams.

This peer exchange call summary focused on assessing potential revenue streams.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on the performance of on-bill financing compared to other financing programs.

This peer exchange call summary focused on multifamily information technology tools for project information, marketing, assessment, tracking and evaluation.

This peer exchange call summary focused on effective program evaluation and incorporating changes into programs based off evaluation insight.

This presentation provides lessons to ensure effective incentive structures.

Presentation describing on-bill repayment programs and providing financing lessons learned.

Presentation providing an overview of the PAYS financial model, including information on risks and how to manage them, and successful program examples using the PAYS model.

This presentation provides background information on energy efficiency financing barriers and opportunities. These barriers may include lack of confidence in energy savings, renter/owner split incentives, long paybacks, and high up-front costs. The presentation also includes five areas of opportunity for SEE Action Financing Solutions Working Group activities.

Tips for recruiting and procuring financial partners and developing and negotiating financial partner agreements.

This presentation highlights research from U.S. Green Data showing that it is important to pique consumers' interest with incentives, but that their effectiveness can be maximized by making them simple, focusing on people "ready to purchase," and educating consumers about the value of energy efficiency.

Presentation describing how Conservation Services Group uses data to monitor market transformation and for internal QA/QC purposes.

Presentation providing an overview of financing programs, a strategy for continuous improvement, tools for program management, a risk management strategy, and common risks associated with financing programs.

This presentation covers the importance of collecting and evaluating program data, including data related to marketing efforts.

The Building Performance Database (BPD) is the nation's largest dataset of information about the energy-related characteristics of commercial and residential buildings. The BPD combines, cleanses and anonymizes data collected by Federal, State and local governments, utilities, energy efficiency programs, building owners and private companies, and makes it available to the public. The web site allows users to explore the data across real estate sectors and regions, and compare various physical and operational characteristics to gain a better understanding of market conditions and trends in energy performance.

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 is a comprehensive guide to utility benchmarking for the multifamily sector. Benchmarking 101 describes the benefits of tracking utility data and explains how to begin the process. Utility Benchmarking Step-by-Step outlines a six-step approach to utility benchmarking. Policies and Programs summarizes utility benchmarking requirements for HUD programs, opportunities for financial assistance, and HUD programs that support green retrofits.

The Energy Data Accelerator Toolkit is a collection of resources featured in the Better Buildings Solution Center that will enable other utilities and communities to learn and benefit from the work of the Accelerator. It describes the best practices that enabled cities, utilities, and other stakeholders to overcome whole-building data access barriers.

The Better Buildings Financing Navigator is a web-based tool designed to help private and public sector organizations discover financing solutions for energy efficiency projects that meet their unique needs. Through the Financing Navigator, multi-family building owners, facility and energy managers, and other decision-makers can connect with financiers, including banks and financial institutions, to pursue energy-saving measures.

This online tool was designed to help Americans save money and energy by improving the energy efficiency of their homes through recommended, customized, and prioritized home improvement projects. The tool guides homeowners through a do-it-yourself energy assessment to create an ENERGY STAR home profile. Based on the newly created profile, the tool provides customized, prioritized recommendations for improvements. From these recommendations, users can create their own to-do lists of projects and update their home profiles over time as they make improvements. The home profiles can also be printed and used as a marketing advantage when homeowners sell their homes.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Better Buildings Residential Program released version 2.0 of a user-friendly tool for estimating the cost-effectiveness of a residential energy efficiency program based on program administrator inputs. Cost-effectiveness analysis compares the benefits (i.e., outputs or outcomes) associated with a program or a measure with the costs (i.e., resources expended) to produce them. Program cost-effectiveness is commonly used by public utility commissions to make decisions about funding programs or program approaches. Program designers, policy makers, utilities, architects, and engineers can use this tool to estimate the impact of different program changes on the cost-effectiveness of a program.

The energy efficiency reporting tool for public power utilities is an Excel-based template is designed to produce consistent, useful metrics on program investments and performance for small to medium-sized administrators of public power efficiency programs.

National Housing & Rehabilitation Association has collected a number of energy efficiency factsheets and resources on their Preservation Through Energy Efficiency Initiative Library.

The Standard Energy Efficiency Data (SEED)™ Platform is a software application that helps organizations easily manage data on the energy performance of large groups of buildings. Users can combine data from multiple sources, clean and validate it, and share the information with others. The software application provides an easy, flexible, and cost-effective method to improve the quality and availability of data to help demonstrate the economic and environmental benefits of energy efficiency, to implement programs, and to target investment activity.

This tool lets non-experts evaluate county-level emissions displaced at electric power plants by energy efficiency and renewable energy policies and programs.

The Building Energy Data Exchange Specification (BEDES, pronounced "beads" or /bi:ds/) is designed to support analysis of the measured energy performance of commercial, multifamily, and residential buildings, by providing a common data format, definitions, and an exchange protocol for building characteristics, efficiency measures, and energy use.

This tool, developed in Excel, supports the development and analysis of residential energy efficiency programs using standard cost-effectiveness analysis methods. Policy makers, utilities, energy efficiency program managers, architects and engineers may find the tool useful for supporting and scaling up residential energy efficiency programs. The tool estimates cost-effectiveness, using industry standard approaches, of both deep-home energy efficiency retrofits and individual measures. The user can build up a program based on up to 5 different ‘project types’ (or measures implemented) and identify the number of homes to be targeted for retrofits over the program cycle. The tool reports cost-effectiveness metrics of the program, including program budgets, and allows the user to conduct sensitivity analysis against key inputs.

This database (in development) contains information about existing energy efficiency loan programs in the United States. For each loan program the following data is presented: financing mechanism (e.g., credit enhancement, on-bill financing), market (e.g., city, state), sector (e.g., residential single family, residential multi-family), and program sponsorship (e.g., DOE programs, ARRA, private lenders).

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.

This database provides comprehensive information on state, federal, local, and utility incentives and policies that are in place to support renewable energy and energy efficiency.

The Best Practices Self-Benchmarking Tool can be used to identify in your own programs their strengths, areas of improvement needed, and strategies for improving them, based on the results of the Best Practices Study.

A calculator that converts greenhouse gas emissions into everyday equivalencies. It can be used to help clearly communicate information about energy savings initiatives aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

A tool that provides information on the air emissions attributable to the electricity used in a home or business during one year, along with a description of what these numbers mean in everyday terms and information on how to be more energy efficient or buy green power.

Provides a sample or preliminary term sheet for single family residential energy efficiency loans that can provide a basis for discussions and negotiations with prospective lending partners.

The Better Building Residential Program Implementation Plan Template will help you develop a strategy for planning, operating, and evaluating a successful residential energy efficiency program. The template includes sections for all six program components (i.e., Market Position & Business Model, Program Design & Customer Experience, Evaluation & Data Collection, Marketing & Outreach, Financing, and Contractor Engagement & Workforce Development).

The Better Building Residential Program Implementation Plan Template will help you develop a strategy for planning, operating, and evaluating a successful residential energy efficiency program. The template includes sections for all six program components (i.e., Market Position & Business Model, Program Design & Customer Experience, Evaluation & Data Collection, Marketing & Outreach, Financing, and Contractor Engagement & Workforce Development).

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).

Form used by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission for consent to disclose utility customer data.

This document provides a menu of initial questions for a program administrator or implementer to build on and use in developing a real-time evaluation survey to collect qualitative data from contractors.

This worksheet can help you organize your ideas and methods for creating an effective evaluation plan.

Example proposal evaluation scoring sheet to rank qualifications of financial institution bidders for energy efficiency upgrade loan programs.

A template competitive procurement procedure to award loan loss reserve funds to a financial institution partner.

A template agreement demonstrating how to address the deposit and use of loan loss reserve funds.

A template agreement that addresses the full energy efficiency or renewable energy loan origination cycle.

This sample phone survey template for program drop-outs, created by the Better Buildings Neighborhood Program, was designed for programs to find out why applicants that applied to participate in a program ultimately dropped out.

This sample phone survey template, created by the Better Buildings Neighborhood Program, was designed for programs to use with applicants who have been screened out from participating in a program.

This sample email survey template, created by the Better Buildings Neighborhood Program, was designed for programs to develop their own survey of successful program participants in order to assess customer experience.

Homeowner survey created by the utility to inform their whole home upgrade program.

This report discusses how information technologies (IT) and communication networks are enabling new ways of tracking and analyzing the benefits of saving energy. Automated data collection and processing, enabled by inexpensive sensors, WiFi networks, and cloud computing, are reducing the time and expense required to determine the value of nonenergy benefits. This report explores new techniques for data gathering and analysis, what they could mean for energy efficiency programs, and how they might impact state and utility policies.

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.