This study documents the market valuation associated with the predominant green and energy efficiency home certifications used in the Northwest. Regional markets with a track record of including green building and energy efficiency information in MLS databases have lacked a recent, thorough, locally relevant analysis of the potential value of “higher performing” homes in current market conditions. Real property appraisers require a reliable, localized, granular analysis they can use in their home valuation calculations. The analysis contained in this report addresses this identified market need.

This webcast discusses the value of energy efficiency in the real estate market.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on changing an organization's home performance business model and expanding the services offered.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how energy efficiency initiatives relate to real estate marketing.

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.

Low-income energy efficiency programs provide financially vulnerable utility customers with important energy savings. To date, low-income programs have faced challenges in driving participation -- fueling myths that suggest low-income populations are difficult to reach. This paper explores these myths in turn.

This paper describes existing barriers to integrating energy efficiency data into real estate markets, and illustrates recent efforts to address them. National cross-industry collaborations have resulted in standard data collection and transfer tools that allow home performance data to be shared across industries. Real estate markets in some regions have begun including these data into multiple listing services (MLS), making them visible during real estate transactions.

This report details findings from the evaluation of the Colorado energy efficiency financing program.

This webcast covers a report that is a comparative analysis of utility-run behavior programs, which lays the groundwork for further program development by developing a classification scheme, or taxonomy, that sorts programs into discrete categories.

This fact sheet outlines the opportunities and challenges to be considered in expanding energy efficiency in the affordable multifamily housing sector. Making affordable rental housing more energy efficient is a cost-effective way to reduce energy consumption, maintain housing affordability, create healthier and more comfortable living environments for moderate- and low income families, and reduce pollution.

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

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on Better Buildings Residential Network members reporting upgrades and benefits.

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 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 Better Buildings Residential Network Partnerships Toolkit includes templates, tools, guides, and examples to help energy efficiency organizations engage in partnerships that leverage resources and strengthen their programs.

The Better Buildings Residential Network hosts a series of Peer Exchange Calls for members to discuss similar needs and challenges, and to collectively identify effective strategies and useful resources. This document provides a sample of lessons learned shared by members during Peer Exchange Calls held in fall 2014.

List of building energy software packages, some of which are available for free or a small fee.

The study involved on-site visits to 180 single-family homes across Connecticut. The team assessed compliance with the weatherization standard using both the prescriptive and performance paths and made recommendations to improve program quality.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on strategies and advantages of combining energy and water conservation services.

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 the advantages and challenges of data tracking systems.

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

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

This webcast is part of a three-part series on communications strategies and methods. It focuses on how communities can effectively showcase the benefits and successes of a clean energy initiative to ensure additional funding opportunities, continued engagement, and sustained behavior change.

This presentation summarizes the non-energy benefits of energy efficiency, and how they can be used to drive uptake of energy efficiency measures. State examples are included.

This report was prepared to provide an overview and analysis of results and lessons learned under Efficiency Vermont’s program from 2011-2013.  The aim was to explore the factors that motivate customers to initiate and complete retrofit projects, how have these factors influenced the growth and development of the program, and opportunities to update and evolve the program.

This summary report provides scientific results, lessons learned, and recommendations for driving energy efficiency in existing buildings on an urban scale. It includes program marketing lesson learned, such as: personal outreach and call to action events are critical marketing opportunities.

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 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 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 webcast provides an introduction to cost-effectiveness testing for energy efficiency programs. It also covers key drivers in the cost-effectiveness results and cost-effectiveness tools developed for the U.S. Department of Energy.

This webcast provides an introduction to cost-effectiveness testing for energy efficiency programs, key drivers in the cost-effectiveness results, and cost effectiveness tool developed for the U.S. Department of Energy.

The report makes the case for establishment of common data collection practices for energy efficiency lending. The report reviews existing practices for the collection of four categories of data from energy efficiency financing programs: (1) customer data; (2) financial product and performance data; (3) facility-level data; and (4) energy efficiency project data. The report then identifies high-priority needs, characterizes potential uses for finance program data, and identifies use cases that describe how stakeholders use data for key objectives and actions.

This webcast discusses evaluation of costs for energy efficiency measures.

SEEA created this document to inform the planning, design and delivery of early-stage energy efficiency programs in the Southeast. This document captures general concepts essential to the successful development and implementation of robust program portfolios, as well as lessons learned from prior experience on the regional and national levels.

This guide is designed to serve as a "how-to" reference for island communities (or small, similarly sized, more isolated communities) that want to develop and implement a residential energy-efficiency and conservation program. The purpose of this guide is to help communities chart a course for successful program development based on the lessons learned during implementation and operation of RePower Bainbridge, an energy-efficiency program on Bainbridge Island, Washington.

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.

This report builds and expands off of previous research by collecting and evaluating data from 800 Illinois Home Performance (IHP) retrofits. This study investigates homeowner measure package choices in the Illinois Home Performance with ENERGY STAR® (IHP) program compared to cost-optimal choices determined through Building Energy Optimization (BEopt™) modeling software.

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 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.

Residential multifamily properties represent not only a significant share of the housing stock in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region, but a significant opportunity to capture energy efficiency savings through cost-effective retrofit measures. The nature of the multifamily housing stock Ð and, in particular, the small multifamily sector Ð creates a unique set of challenges that have until now largely stymied the retrofit market. Yet some successful models for reaching the small multifamily sector have begun to emerge. This paper is meant to inform energy efficiency stakeholders and policymakers about best practices gleaned from examining existing programs and policies addressing energy efficiency in the small multifamily housing market; to identify continuing gaps in the ability to penetrate that market to an even greater extent; and to present recommendations for programs and policies that may hold the promise of additional energy savings.

This publication presents examples of the value that insights from behavior analytics can provide to programs (as well as pointing out its limitations).

This report analyzes four home energy report programs, and presents key insights about the long-term savings implications of these programs beyond the first years of operation and after the programs concluded.

This webcast discusses the savings and cost-effectiveness of home energy reports programs.

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 integrating residential energy efficiency programs with the real estate market.

The Model EM&V Methods Standardized Reporting Forms were prepared by the Regional Evaluation, Measurement and Verification Forum (‘the Forum’).  The Forum embarked to create a model template that supports greater transparency of program administrator/state EM&V practices used to calculate EE savings via a straightforward, standardized EM&V methods ‘check list.’  This type of document is intended to help energy and environmental policy and market players readily understand and compare EM&V approaches used to estimate reported EE program savings to inform their specific needs. 

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 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 evaluation and research plan sets out a proposed process for establishing and executing a detailed evaluation and research plan for New Jersey's Clean Energy Program.

This memo provides a review of the New Jersey Comfort Partners Energy Saving Protocols, recommends changes to the calculations and additional calculation protocols for measures not included, and calculates engineering estimates for those proposed energy savings formulas.

Multifamily affordable housing is full of untapped energy efficiency potential. This overview provides context and best practices for creating effective programs to capture this potential. With a better understanding of these considerations, stakeholders can start to build a more robust network of leaders and practitioners in affordable multifamily housing and realize the vast environmental, economic, and social potential of delivering energy efficiency for all.

This webcast discusses the background for U.S. Department of Energy’s Smart Grid Investment Grant (SGIG) consumer behavior study effort; the various utilities who are participating and what they each plan to include their respective studies; the quantitative results and qualitative lessons learned thus far from these studies; and the types of research will be undertaken by LBNL over the next several years.

The purpose of this report, prepared by sustainability consulting firm iSpring, is to provide the results of the EnergyWorks program to the contractors and auditors who participated, along with information on lessons learned over the course of the program that might prove helpful in their future work.

Multifamily housing retrofits provide a rich opportunity to reap energy efficiency (EE) savings. Despite this opportunity, the multifamily market has not captured investment needed to realize the energy savings, and the affordable housing sector faces additional investment barriers. This paper makes the case for the implementation of energy retrofits in affordable multifamily buildings by presenting the non-energy benefits (NEBs) associated with such upgrades.

This presentation provides an overview of the results and lessons learned from 41 community partners that participated in the Better Buildings Neighborhood Program. It also provides an overview of the Better Buildings Residential Program Solution Center.

This guide/toolkit provides step-by-step recommendations on how policymakers can go about devising successful energy disclosure policies. It discusses the who, what, where, when, why, and, most importantly, how, for creating disclosure policies for the residential sector.

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.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how to identify stakeholders and map them to determine the best engagement strategy.

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 report examines the opportunity for accelerating Fort Collins’ energy and climate goals to reflect the community’s values, and capture economic, social, and environmental benefits.

Quick summaries of strategies various programs have used to improve the efficiency of delivering efficiency.

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.

Research reveals a whole range of unmet housing-related desires in America -- gaps between what Americans have and what they say they need or want. The Demand Institute surveyed more than 10,000 households about their current living situation and what’s important to them in a home. The survey represents all U.S. households: renters and owners; movers and non-movers; young and old and finds that unsatisfied needs and desires cut across the entire population.

This report presents the underlying barriers and drivers of successful efficiency programs, deliberates upon what financing roles are most appropriate for SEEA involvement going forward, and quantifies the opportunity for energy efficiency financing in the Southeast going forward.

This report presents the cost of saving energy through efficiency programs funded by utility customers in the period 2009-2011 at the national and regional level for all sectors and the most prevalent program types.

This website provides information on U.S. housing characteristics, including energy consumption data.

This document provides an overview of the National Efficiency Screening Project's recommendations for using the Resource Value Framework (RVF) to improve cost-effectiveness testing. The RVF is a collection of principles and recommendations to provide guidance for states to develop and implement tests that are consistent with sound principles and best practices.

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.

Template from the Better Buildings Neighborhood Program for collecting customer usage data from utilities.

This presentation explains the importance of data collection and analysis for residential energy efficiency programs, common challenges related to data collection, and best practices for effective data collection and use.

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 peer exchange call summary focused on administering energy efficiency programs as a nonprofit organization.

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

RePower Bainbridge works with local residents to find creative ways to increase energy awareness, including developing an innovative Island Energy Dashboard, which displays real-time energy use around the island.

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.

This report presents the impact evaluation conducted of the 13 programs in the Southeast Consortium Better Buildings Neighborhood Program (BBNP).

This report presents the phase 1 process evaluation conducted of the 13 programs in the Southeast Consortium Better Buildings Neighborhood Program (BBNP).

This report presents the phase 2 process evaluation conducted of the 13 programs in the Southeast Consortium Better Buildings Neighborhood Program (BBNP).

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 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 the benefits of community assessments and strategies for gathering information.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on state policies that help promote energy efficiency.

This policy brief presents a program typology and standardized data metrics for assessing energy efficiency program characteristics, costs, and impacts. Based on a review of nationwide regulatory filings, the research serves as part of an effort to analyze the cost per unit of savings for utility customer-funded energy efficiency programs. The paper discusses the program categories and definitions, which are based primarily on review of several years of annual energy efficiency reports from 108 program administrators in 31 states for approximately 1,900 unique programs.

This report provides an independent analysis of the job creation impact of DOE's investment in energy efficiency programs, from 2010 to 2013. The analysis calculates the job creation results that would have occurred in the Southeast, based on the prevailing economic conditions from 2010 to 2013, had DOE invested in sectors other than energy efficiency.

This report demonstrates the results achieved to date by the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance. It highlights the experiences of Consortium programs, their successes driving further investments in energy efficiency improvements, and the challenges that hindered their progress. It also details the infrastructure, resources, and opportunities that support the deployment of energy efficiency programming, and the approaches that the Consortium has found best suited to the region.

This report provides an independent analysis of the economic performance of SEEA's 13-city, U.S. Department of Energy-funded energy efficiency upgrade consortium from 2010 to 2013. It estimates the net impacts of SEEA's energy efficiency programs on the economy of the southeast region as a whole, and on the economies of the states with participating programs.

This resource is designed to help new users to ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager get started with benchmarking.

Example survey about a homeowner's experience with a visit from an energy advisor as part of EnergySmart in Boulder County, Colorado.

This report presents the results of an independent evaluation of Efficiency Maine Trust's Residential Direct Install Program for Fiscal Year 2013.

This guide introduces the Community Energy Strategic Plan (CESP) approach, a step-by-step process for creating a robust strategic energyÊ plan. The guide offers tools and tips to complete each step and highlights examples from successful planning efforts around the country.

This study examines actual loan performance data obtained from CoreLogic, the lending industry’s leading source of such data. To assess whether residential energy efficiency is associated with lower default and prepayment risks, a national sample of about 71,000 ENERGY STAR and non-ENERGY STAR-rated single-family home mortgages was carefully constructed, accounting for loan, household, and neighborhood characteristics. The study finds that default risks are on average 32 percent lower in energy-efficient homes, controlling for other loan determinants.

This report presents impact evaluation results for the Energy Savers program for large multi-family buildings. The Energy Savers program is run by CNT Energy and Community Investment Corporation. Initiated in January 2008 and now in its fifth year of existence, the Energy Savers program involves a variety of services to promote energy efficiency improvements for multi-family residential buildings of 5-50 units in the affordable housing market segment.

Philadelphia EnergyWorks helped sustain future programs by sharing marketing insights and program data with a local utility partner.

This study looks at evidence of capitalization of energy efficiency features in home prices using data from real estate multiple listing services (MLS) in three metropolitan areas: the Research Triangle region of North Carolina; Austin, Texas; and Portland, Oregon. These home listings include information on Energy Star certification and, in Portland and Austin, local green certifications. Our results suggest that Energy Star certification increases the sales prices of homes built between 1995 and 2006 but has no statistically significant effect on sales prices for newer homes.

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 webcast discusses how to measuring program outcomes and use benchmarks.