This webinar covers best practices for providing whole-building data, as well as options building owners and landlords have to influence this process. Multifamily property stakeholders need better information about their energy usage. Arming them with this information enables better benchmarking and energy management practices, and more reliable utility allowance models for affordable housing. Actionable energy usage information allows building owners to make improvements to not only save energy, but also reduce expenses, increase comfort, and lower vacancies.

The key challenge with quantifying savings from end-use efficiency activities is the identification of an accurate baseline from which to determine the savings. Regardless of the protocol or procedure applied, all savings values are determined by estimating likely energy use in the absence of the program or project (the “counterfactual” scenario, or baseline). This webcast provides an introduction to considerations and common practices for defining baselines, the relationship between baselines and savings attribution, and examples of how different jurisdictions are addressing market baseline studies, setting baselines for retrofit measures, and market transformation program baselines.

This presentation discusses the energy efficiency reporting tool for public power utilities. The tool 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.

This webinar is the third (in a series of six) hosted by USDA Rural Utility Service (RUS) and focusing on the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Loan Program (EECLP). The first in a two-part series, this webinar shares best practices from the more than 40 competitively selected state and local governments who participated in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Neighborhood Program, including market position and business model, program design and customer experience, evaluation and data collection, marketing and outreach, financing, and contractor engagement and workforce development.

This webinar is the fourth (in a series of six) hosted by USDA Rural Utility Service (RUS) and focusing on the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Loan Program (EECLP). The second in a two-part series, this webinar shares best practices from the more than 40 competitively selected state and local governments who participated in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Neighborhood Program. This webinar focuses on data collection and continuous improvement, partnering with financial institutions, community-based outreach, and quality assurance of contractor work. It also features a case study from Jackson Electric Member Corporation about their audit tools, rebates and loans, tracking and reporting, and marketing and advertising strategies.

This webinar is the second (in a series of six) hosted by USDA Rural Utility Service (RUS) and focusing on the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Loan Program (EECLP). This webinar covers the key concepts of Evaluation, Monitoring & Verification (EM&V), gives an overview of the full process, from estimating savings before programs are implemented to measuring and verifying the savings at the end. The webinar also covers EM&V framework, evaluation plans, technical reference manuals and measurement and verification studies.

This webinar is the first (in a series of six) hosted by USDA Rural Utility Service (RUS) and focusing on the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Loan Program (EECLP). This webinar provides an overview of the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Loan Program. It covers the requirements and benefits of the program and also discusses steps you can take to evaluate the cost effectiveness of energy program options.

This webcast focused on advanced topics for local government-utility partnerships, with presentations from local governments and their partnering utilities that have well-developed, multi-year relationships and programs.

This webinar series is intended for state officials starting or expanding their EM&V methods for a wide range of efficiency activities including utility customer-funded programs, building energy codes, appliance and equipment standards, energy savings performance contracting, and efficiency programs that support pollution reduction goals or regulations.

This presentation helps multifamily building owners better understand the how and why of utility benchmarking. Explore strategies and resources for translating benchmarking results into concrete next steps toward improving property performance.

This presentation helps multifamily building owners better understand the how and why of utility benchmarking. Learn about the benefits of utility benchmarking, including various drivers for performing utility benchmarking at multifamily properties, and explore how your organization can start with utility benchmarking with the help of HUD resources.

Cost-effectiveness evaluations compare energy efficiency's benefits and costs to judge whether to expand, retain, revise, or eliminate efficiency programs or specific measures. This presentation discusses the basics of cost-effectiveness assessments for utility customer-funded efficiency portfolios as well as issues and options that should be considered when assessing cost-effectiveness, selecting which test(s) to use, and quantifying the components of tests (e.g., non-energy impacts, measure costs).

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on evaluating and demonstrating the cost-effectiveness of energy upgrades to programs.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

This report presents findings from an impact evaluation of the Universal Audit Tool (UAT). UAT programs provide residential customers with advice on energy efficiency, insight into areas of high energy use, and tips and suggestions for saving both energy and money based on responses to an online survey regarding household appliances, occupancy, and other dwelling characteristics.

Energy efficiency program evaluation is increasingly important as utilities implement programs to meet regulatory requirements, such as energy efficiency portfolio standards. While utilities need internal staff to oversee evaluation activities, most evaluations are actually conducted by outside consultants. Thus, utility staff require a sufficient understanding of the evaluation process to plan program evaluation activities as well as to manage internal stakeholders and evaluation contractors. This guide is intended to help prepare utility staff to accomplish these tasks.

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.

This document provides guidance on how policymakers, utilities, and regulators should approach whole-building data access to maintain the confidentiality of utility customers.

The benefits of energy efficiency extend beyond energy savings. Homes, commercial buildings, and industrial facilities gain comfort, health, and safety benefits from energy efficiency programs. Additional benefits for businesses include savings on maintenance, materials, and the costs of regulatory compliance. On the supply side, electric utilities enjoy reduced system costs. Focusing on the residential, business, and utility sectors, this report examines each of these multiple benefits, their role in program marketing, and current best practices for including them in cost-effectiveness testing.

This Guide is designed to help state and local policymakers to take full advantage of new policy developments by providing them with a comprehensive set of tools to support launching or accelerating residential energy efficiency programs. The Guide focuses on four categories of policies that have proven particularly effective in providing a framework within which residential energy efficiency programs can thrive: incentives and financing, making the value of energy efficiency visible in the real estate market, data access and standardization, and supporting utility system procurement of energy efficiency.

Among the many benefits ascribed to energy efficiency is the fact that it can help create jobs. Although this is often used to motivate investments in efficiency programs, verifying job creation benefits is more complicated than it might seem at first. This paper identifies some of the issues that contribute to a lack of consistency in attempts to verify efficiency-related job creation. It then proposes an analytically rigorous and tractable framework for program evaluators to use in future assessments.

The objective of this Guide, in part, is to serve as a resource to support municipal electric utilities meeting electricity savings goals. This Guide serves as a resource to not only increase the  understanding of best practices utilized by successful energy efficiency programs across the country, but also a plan to support MOUs implementing energy efficiency programs that will ultimately result in energy and electric bill savings for their customers. To support MOUs with the implementation of their own energy efficiency programs, this Guide leverages the lessons learned from energy efficiency programs operating across the country.

This document was prepared by the Regional Evaluation, Measurement and Verification Forum Cost-effectiveness screening for energy efficiency investments is fundamental to customer energy efficiency programs. It is, in essence, the benefit-cost analysis framework that helps stakeholders – including utility regulators, program administrators, and other policymakers –determine which types of energy efficiency investments represent net beneficial investments for ratepayers according to what is in the public interest based on the state’s energy policies.

This report provides policymakers with principles and recommendations to understand and manage concerns about bill and rate impacts resulting from requiring utilities to provide efficiency programs.

This report helps policymakers understand how electric and natural gas utilities can achieve greater efficiency by establishing numeric energy savings targets and goals for energy efficiency programs.

This report offers policy options and considerations to state utility commissions in providing access to energy use data to help commercial customers manage energy costs through building energy benchmarking.

This report provides information on how supporting access to building benchmarking data can help utilities increase efficiency and drive down energy demand.

This resource provides best practices and highlights case studies for how utilities, policymakers, building managers, and community stakeholders can improve access to energy usage data while working towards the goal of improving efficiency in their communities.

This document summarizes top takeaways shared by Better Buildings Residential Network members on Peer Exchange Calls, from tips to collaborating with utilities to cost-effective rebate models.

This report presents the results of ACEEE's third national review or utility-funded energy efficiency programs, completed in 2013. The report identifies and profiles 63 leading programs that span the wide array of program types offered to utility customers, and highlights key trends and observations that emerged from reviewing these programs.

This guide describes a structure and several model approaches for calculating energy, demand, and emissions savings resulting from energy efficiency programs that are implemented by cities, states, utilities, companies, and similar entities.

This report consists of a literature review and in-depth interviews with subject matter experts in the Home Performance with ENERGY STAR (HPwES) program area. The goal was to compare Delaware Sustainable Energy Utility (DESEU) HPwES Programs with peer-programs across the United States. The report also identifies key metrics and emerging trends regarding program design.

Delaware Sustainable Energy Utility (DESEU) completed a process evaluation to assess the overall effectiveness of program operations. Evaluation activities included reviewing program materials, assessing the program flow, conducting in-depth interviews with program staff and implementers, and conducting surveys with contractors and customers. This report summarizes the key findings and recommendations from these process evaluation activities.

This report presents the impact evaluation results of the Marin Clean Energy (MCE) Home Utility Reports (HUR) program for 2015.

This evaluation plan for the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission includes a market assessment framework which includes indicators of progress toward market transformation; evaluation recommendations for the 2015-2016 program implementation period; and a 6-year evaluation plan for each program or customer sector.

This report presents the findings of Phase 2 of the California Public Utilities Commission Low Income Needs Assessment Study. The results of the needs assessment suggest that, over time, the programs have effectively targeted and provided services to low-income households that have the greatest need.

This document constitutes the final report for the 2009-2010 process evaluation of the Low Income Energy Efficiency (LIEE) program operated by the four investor-owned utilities (IOU) of California for the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). The IOUs include: Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), Southern California Edison (SCE), Southern California Gas (SCG), and San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E). Although the program is now referred to as Energy Savings Assistance Program (ESAP), this report will employ the nomenclature used for the 2009-2010 program cycle.

Volume 2 of the Better Buildings Neighborhood Program Evaluation Report comprises a measurement and verification process, as well as billing regression analysis on projects with sufficient utility bill data, to determine gross verified savings.

The Multi-State Residential Retrofit Project is a residential energy-efficiency pilot program, funded by a competitive U.S. State Energy Program (SEP) award through the U.S. Department of Energy. The Multi-State Project operates in four states: Alabama, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Washington. During the course of this three-year process evaluation, Cadmus worked closely with NASEO and the four states to collect information about the programs from many perspectives, including: State Energy Office staff, program implementers, homeowners, auditors/contractors, real estate professionals, appraisers, lenders, and utility staff. This report discusses: the project’s context; its goals; the evaluation approach and methods; cross-cutting evaluation results; and results specific to each of the four states.

This report documents findings and recommendations from an impact evaluation of the California Energy Commission’s California Comprehensive Residential Retrofit program, a statewide energy upgrade program funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The program funded local and regional subrecipients to develop and test initiatives aimed at transforming the residential energy upgrade market and building an infrastructure for whole-building energy upgrades. These local and regional governments collaborated with California’s major utilities to jointly conduct the statewide Energy Upgrade California program.

This RFQ from Delaware Sustainable Energy Utility (DESEU) seeks an implementation firm that can deliver the Home Performance with ENERGY STAR (HPwES) Program cost-effectively for a three-year period.

Data release form that allows the Connecticut Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority (CEFIA) to obtain customer utility account and actual energy usage data, energy costs, underwriting and loan repayment records, and data on energy savings measures installed.

Better Buildings Energy Data Accelerator (BBEDA) partners Salt Lake City, the investor-owned electric utility Rocky Mountain Power (RMP), and the investor-owned natural gas utility Questar worked with community stakeholders throughout 2014 and 2015 to design and implement a data access solution. As a result, RMP created a data access portal for its customers in 2016, and Questar is working toward a data access solution that will be operational by 2017.

In this video interview segment, Tom Bregman of Energize New York, Energy Smart discusses how to overcoming Difficulties Collecting Non-Utility Fuel Data (e.g., fuel oil, propane).