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Market Position & Business Model – Assess & Improve Processes

Develop processes, strategies, and procedures to continuously improve your organization’s operations and position in the market.
Handbook

Contractor Engagement & Workforce Development – Develop Resources

Develop workforce and contractor engagement procedures, forms, and materials
Handbook

Market Position & Business Model – Develop Evaluation Plans

Develop processes to evaluate your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, and market position on a regular basis.
Handbook

Market Position & Business Model – Develop Resources

Identify and develop needed resources to position your organization in the market and maintain a viable business model.
Handbook

Contractor Engagement & Workforce Development – Develop Evaluation Plans

Determine processes for collecting and sharing data about key contractor metrics and workforce development activities.
Handbook

Program Design & Customer Experience – Identify Partners

Establish relationships with organizations that can help deliver your program by enhancing your knowledge, resources, capabilities and access to customers and contractors.
Handbook

Program Design & Customer Experience – Set Goals & Objectives

Establish program goals and objectives to clarify what you want your program to achieve and to guide program design and implementation over time.
Handbook

Market Position & Business Model – Create a Business Plan

Create your organization’s business plan, which describes how your operational and financial structure will support the delivery of energy efficiency services.
Handbook

Market Position & Business Model – Develop a Business Model

Define your business model, including market position, products and services, type of customers, financial model, governance structure, and the assets and infrastructure your organization needs.
Handbook

Market Position & Business Model – Identify Partners

Identify and engage organizational partners in your business model design.
Handbook

Marketing & Outreach – Deliver Program

Implement marketing and outreach activities in coordination with other program components to generate demand for your program's services.
Handbook

Marketing & Outreach – Develop Resources

Create your program's branding guidelines and materials to elevate program visibility and support your marketing and outreach efforts.
Handbook

Financing – Make Design Decisions

Determine if enhancements to existing financing products or the development of new products are necessary to allow you to achieve your goals and objectives.
Handbook

Marketing & Outreach – Develop Implementation Plans

Develop a marketing and outreach plan that details your strategies and tactics, workflows and timelines, staff roles and responsibilities, and budget.
Handbook

Marketing & Outreach – Make Design Decisions

Decide on priority target audience segments, messages, and incentives that will motivate customers.
Handbook

Financing – Identify Partners

Identify and partner with financial institutions that can provide capital, underwriting, and other functions to enable your customers to access financing.
Handbook

Marketing & Outreach – Identify Partners

Establish relationships with organizations that will assist with program marketing and outreach.
Handbook

Market Position & Business Model – Assess the Market

Survey existing and potential demand for energy efficiency products and services based on an understanding of policies, housing and energy characteristics, demographics, related initiatives and other market actors.
Handbook

Program Design & Customer Experience – Overview

Design a residential energy efficiency program that integrates marketing and outreach, contractor coordination, incentives, financing, and program evaluation to provide customers with the products and services they want through a customer-centric process.
Handbook

Market Position & Business Model – Overview

Identify your organization's preferred market position by assessing existing market actors, gaps, competitors, and potential partners. Develop a business model that will allow you to deliver energy efficiency services.
Handbook

Marketing & Outreach – Overview

Spur consumer demand for your program's services by understanding your target audience and motivating them to act using effective messaging, marketing and outreach tactics, and attractive program offers.
Handbook

Contractor Engagement & Workforce Development – Develop Implementation Plans

Develop contractor engagement, quality assurance, and workforce development plans that include strategies, workflow, timelines, and staff and partner roles and responsibilities.
Handbook

Program Design & Customer Experience – Develop Resources

Develop the necessary materials, tools, and staff capacity to effectively deliver and manage your program.
Handbook

Evaluation & Data Collection – Develop Evaluation Plans

Identify the right questions to ask, appropriate metrics to collect, and the processes needed to initiate third-party impact and process evaluations.
Handbook

Contractor Engagement & Workforce Development – Make Design Decisions

Solidify your program strategy and decide which customers you will focus on; what products, services, and support you will provide; and how you will partner with contractors and others to deliver services to your customers.
Handbook

Contractor Engagement & Workforce Development – Overview

Support and partner with the workforce who will deliver your program’s energy efficiency services by understanding their capacity, recruiting contractor partners, enabling technical training and business development support, fostering clear communication, and refining program processes over time, in partnership with your workforce.
Handbook

Maintain a sufficient workforce from program launch into program maturity

Your program will rely on its contractor base in order to succeed, so take steps to ensure that the capacity of the workforce is sufficient to launch your program and to maintain it as it grows. An evaluation of over 140 programs found that successful programs fostered and maintained relationships...
Tips for Success

When partnering with lenders through a request for proposal (RFP), establish a clear process and remain flexible

Establishing strong, collaborative partnerships with one or more lending partners is critical for successful delivery of affordable home energy lending. These partnerships are typically created through a request for proposal (RFP) process which can encourage market competition and help to attract...
Tips for Success

Provide information to help customers pick the right contractor

Early on, many Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners focused on providing customers with a range of contractors to choose from, while providing contractors with access to customers. Customer feedback received by some programs, however, indicated that customers were confused or overwhelmed...
Tips for Success

Recognize and reward good contractor performance

Many programs used the information they gathered through their quality assurance efforts to recognize contractors that deliver consistent, high-quality work. Rewarding good contractor performance can help you build trust, strengthen partnerships, and boost workforce morale. You can incentivize...
Tips for Success

Establish collaborative partnerships with contractors and communicate with them early and often

Contractors are more likely to serve as program champions when the program engages with them throughout program design, delivery, and improvement. Your contractors are the primary contact points with your customers, and the quality of their interactions and services strongly influences how customers...
Tips for Success

Keep the program simple for your customers

Given all of the other things that compete for your audience’s attention, it is critical that program participation steps are straightforward and easy to understand. Many programs have found that complexity makes it harder for interested homeowners to complete upgrade projects. These programs have...
Tips for Success

Hire staff with financing skills and knowledge

Financing can be a complicated topic for programs, and having staff with financing knowledge and expertise can be very valuable. Financing program administration involves working with lenders and understanding how they operate as well as understanding financial regulatory issues and loan product...
Tips for Success

Conduct one-on-one outreach where people gather and help them take action right away

Programs that conducted one-on-one outreach found that community events provided good opportunities for the program and its partners to connect and build credibility with potential customers. Particularly successful events were ones that attracted the program’s target audience and aligned with their...
Tips for Success

GUEP Community Spotlight: Columbia, MO goes deeper with energy data

Author(s)
Georgetown University Energy Prize
Publication Date
2017
Organizations or Programs
CoMo Energy Challenge

This presentation covers how the City of Columbia, Missouri, is going deeper with their data to shape how all members of their community use energy. It also shows CoMO Energy Challenge's custom data mapping tool.

Resource - Webcast

Using Integrated Resource Planning to Encourage Investment in Cost-Effective Energy Efficiency Measures

Author(s)
State and Local Energy Efficiency Action Network
Publication Date
2013

This webcast reviews the SEE Action report that describes how utility planning processes that allow demand-side resources to compete with supply-side resources can promote cost-effective energy efficiency.

Resource - Webcast

DOE Template Financial Institution RFP

Author(s)
U.S. Department of Energy
Publication Date
2010

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

Resource - Templates & Forms

The Energy Efficiency Market in the Greater Cincinnati Region: Energy Savings Potential and Strategies to Improve Performance of Residential and Nonprofit Buildings

Author(s)
American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy,
University of Cincinnati Economics Center
Publication Date
2011
Organizations or Programs
Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance (GCEA)

This report analyzes the energy efficiency opportunity presented to the greater Cincinnati region. Analysis of the region and the Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance (GCEA) programs shows potential energy cost savings, including positive cash flow from energy cost savings that consistently exceed loan payments, for both residential and nonprofit participants. Investment in energy efficiency could make counties more competitive, create jobs, reduce pollution, and help homeowners and nonprofits make cross-cutting building improvements.

Resource - Publications

Using Integrated Resource Planning to Encourage Investment in Cost-Effective Energy Efficiency

Author(s)
State and Local Energy Efficiency Action Network
Publication Date
2011

This report describes how utility planning processes that allow demand-side resources to compete with supply-side resources can promote cost-effective energy efficiency.

Resource - Publications

Home Energy Makeover Contests: Who Are the Winners and Losers in Motivating Existing Homeowners to Make "Whole House" Energy Saving Improvements

Author(s)
UtilityExchange.org,
Building Performance Institute
Publication Date
2013
Organizations or Programs
Atlanta SHINE,
DecaturWISE,
CharlestonWISE,
Enhabit,
Energy Upgrade California,
Help My House,
FirstEnergy,
Local Energy Alliance Program (LEAP),
NOLA WISE

This paper first details industry best practices for contest administration, including tips for developing an overall contest plan and timeline, product sponsor recruitment, building a dynamic informational website, maximizing customer participation, selecting the winning home, seamless installation management, capturing and documenting project results, conducting a high profile media open house and facilitating customer workshops that educate homeowners and strengthen trade ally relationships. This paper then presents results and key lessons learned from more than 20 contests supported with funds from local community sustainability programs, utility energy efficiency programs, and U.S. Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds between 2008 and 2012.

Resource - Publications

Multi-State Residential Retrofit Project: Process Evaluation Final

Author(s)
National Association of State Energy Officials
Publication Date
2014
Organizations or Programs
National Association of State Energy Officials

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.

Resource - Program Presentations & Reports

Sample RFP: City of Independence, Missouri

Author(s)
City of Independence, Missouri
Publication Date
2010

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

Resource - Program Materials

Content Type

  • Handbook (26)
  • Resource (8)
  • Tips for Success (8)

Resource Type

Program Components

  • Market Position & Business Model (10)
  • Program Design & Customer Experience (9)
  • Evaluation & Data Collection (4)
  • Marketing & Outreach (8)
  • Financing (6)
  • Contractor Engagement & Workforce Development (9)

Program Design Phases

  • Overview (9)
  • Strategy Development (23)
  • Planning (17)
  • Implementation (13)
  • Evaluation (6)

States or Territories

  • Alabama (1)
  • Arizona (3)
  • California (3)
  • Colorado (2)
  • Illinois (2)
  • Maine (1)
  • Maryland (2)
  • Massachusetts (1)
  • Michigan (1)
  • Missouri (2)
  • Montana (1)
  • Nevada (1)
  • New Hampshire (1)
  • New York (3)
  • Ohio (1)
  • Oregon (7)
  • Texas (1)
  • Utah (1)
  • Vermont (2)
  • Virginia (2)
  • Washington (6)
  • Wisconsin (1)

Organizations or Programs

  • Enhabit (7)
  • Community Power Works (2)
  • Energy Impact Illinois (2)
  • Local Energy Alliance Program (LEAP) (2)
  • Arizona Public Service (APS) (1)
  • Atlanta SHINE (1)
  • Austin Energy (1)
  • Beacon Communities Project (1)
  • Be SMART (1)
  • CharlestonWISE (1)
  • CoMo Energy Challenge (1)
  • DecaturWISE (1)
  • Efficiency Maine (1)
  • Energize New York (1)
  • Energize Phoenix (1)
  • EnergySmart (1)
  • Energy Upgrade California (1)
  • FirstEnergy (1)
  • Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance (GCEA) (1)
  • Help My House (1)
  • Long Island Green Homes (1)
  • Maryland Home Performance with ENERGY STAR (1)
  • Michigan Saves (1)
  • National Association of State Energy Officials (1)
  • NeighborWorks of Western Vermont (1)
  • NOLA WISE (1)
  • RePower Bainbridge (1)
  • RePower Kitsap (1)
  • Sacramento Municipal Utility District’s Neighborhood Program (1)
  • Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance (SEEA) (1)
Residential Program Guide is a resource of the U.S. Department of Energy's Building Technologies Office.
Contact | Building Technologies Office

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