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This report shares the results of a research study conducted to understand the awareness and perceptions of potential consumers regarding ductless heat pumps and heat pump water heaters. The results were intended to help the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance improve messaging and marketing themes related to these products across the northwest region.
This series of 19 tip sheets is based on the experience and expertise of EPA’s Climate Showcase Communities. The tip sheets cover a wide range of topics, such as marketing and communications (effective messaging, traditional media strategies, community-based social marketing, and testimonial videos) and working with specific types of stakeholders (institutional partners, contractors, experts, utilities, early adopters, volunteers).
This tip sheet was inspired by the experiences and expertise of EPA’s Climate Showcase Communities (CSCs). It focuses on community-based social marketing and highlights best practices and helpful resources and recommended resources for other communities interested in pursuing similar projects.
This tip sheet from EPA's Climate Showcase Communities provides lessons from programs about strategies for effective messaging as well as recommended resources.
This tip sheet was inspired by the experiences and expertise of EPA’s Climate Showcase Communities (CSCs). It focuses on traditional media strategies and highlights best practices and helpful resources and recommended resources for other communities interested in pursuing similar projects.
This Multifamily Technical Reference Manuals (TRMs) provide documentation for the Trust's calculation of energy and demand savings from energy efficiency measures.
This guide provides recommended benchmarking metrics for measuring residential program performance.
Information and communications technologies (ICT) can automate and transform the evaluation, measurement, and verification (EM&V) of energy efficiency programs. ICT enables the remote monitoring and sophisticated analysis of energy usage, increasing the speed and scale of many EM&V activities. This report reviews traditional EM&V practices, explores new enabling technologies including the Internet of Things and remote building analysis, and describes the application of ICT to each stage of the EM&V process. The report then projects ways forward through a number of challenges (e.g., data overload) and concludes that ICT-enabled EM&V could eventually change the design of efficiency programs and the responsibilities of program administrators, implementers, and evaluators.
Home Performance with ENERGY STAR’s new HPXML Implementation Guide helps energy efficiency program administrators and software developers overcome fragmented data exchange by integrating HPXML (home performance extensible markup language) into their operations and products. HPXML is a set of common definitions for the attributes of home systems based on Building Performance Institute data standards and the computing language that facilitates the quick and easy transfer of home-related data between different markets.
Because of its potential to reduce customers’ first costs and leverage private funds, financing has been increasing in importance as a strategy for facilitating energy upgrades as program administrators seek to meet ambitious goals in a shifting energy efficiency landscape. This paper evaluates the experience of BBNP grantees to identify how programs can most effectively integrate loan offerings into their broader efforts to promote energy efficiency upgrades. The paper also identifies best practices from grantees’ experience related to integrating financing into program outreach and trade ally interactions.
This publication draws on recent focus groups, polls, and other research to chart a path promoting energy efficiency through language and imagery in ways that tap public enthusiasm.
The Recovery Act Evaluation was performed to provide information on the costs and benefits of WAP services in different parts of the country and for different types of housing. It was also performed to provide a comprehensive picture of the Program (including the characteristics of the clients, housing stock, and service providers), assess program administration, document experiences during the Recovery Act period, and conduct several special studies.
The Retrospective Evaluation was performed to provide information on the costs and benefits of WAP services in different parts of the country and for different types of housing. It was also performed to provide a comprehensive picture of the Program (including the characteristics of the clients, housing stock, and service providers) and assess program administration.
This study examined consumer awareness and opinions concerning the New Jersey Clean Energy Program (NJCEP). Research areas included New Jersey homeowners' awareness of NJCEP, an assessment of attitudes towards energy efficiency, the main benefits associated with energy efficiency, key drivers associated with purchasing energy efficient products, the best methods for increasing consumers awareness of NJCEP, and obstacles to implementing energy efficiency measures in the home.
The purpose of this report is to demonstrate the potential for HEMS as an evolving avenue to deeper residential energy savings, and it explains, in detail, the variations and characteristics of HEMS; what the market is and who the major market players are; what the major barriers to implementation look like; and finally, it attempts to outline potential program solutions with HEMS at the core of the strategy.
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.
A number of states are beginning to recognize Demand Reduction Induced Price Effects (DRIPE) as a real, quantifiable benefit of energy efficiency and demand response programs. DRIPE is a measurement of the value of demand reductions in terms of the decrease in wholesale energy prices, resulting in lower total expenditures on electricity or natural gas across a given grid. This paper reviews the existing knowledge and experience from select U.S. states regarding DRIPE (including New York and Ohio), and the potential for expanded application of the concept of DRIPE by regulators.
New advanced Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) are pouring into the marketplace and are stimulating new thinking and a shift in the energy efficiency EM&V paradigm. These emerging technologies, including advanced data collection and analytic tools, are purported to provide timely analytics on program results and efficacy. This report reviews how new data analytic tools serve to help identify savings opportunities and engaging customers in programs like never before, and explores the potential for advanced data collection (e.g. AMI, smart meters) and data analytics to improve and streamline the evaluation process.
This article discusses the importance and value of evaluating energy efficiency financing programs.
This report shares the results of a multiyear energy consumer research program. The findings and analysis point to important shifts and highlight growing opportunities for forward-thinking energy providers. Above all, they reinforce the importance of the digitally engaged consumer and the need for energy providers to stake their claims in the digital energy ecosystem.
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.
Homebuyers are not only increasingly interested in high-performance homes, or homes incorporating green features, but they are also willing to pay more for them. This report finds that high-performance homes marketed with green features (such as a solar photovoltaic array or LEED certification) sell for a mean premium of 3.46 percent compared to homes without green features.
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 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.
A one-page template that helps program administrators visualize activities and associated timelines for their marketing efforts.
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.
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 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 blog provides six tips the home performance communications professionals can use to create a new or update an existing marketing plan.
This worksheet can help you organize your ideas and methods for creating an effective evaluation plan.
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.
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 paper presents obstacles to increasing lender and consumer participation in energy efficiency financing identified by a group of small to mid-size lenders, and offers recommendations to the energy efficiency community to foster growth in the market for energy efficiency financing.
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.
This report analyzes ten categories of utility-sector energy efficiency programs that have achieved high participation among targeted customer markets. Despite issues with the nature and availability of participation data, the study draws on published data sources and interviews with program contacts and industry experts to identify many examples of programs that have achieved high participation.
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 blog summarizes how BetterBuildings for Michigan, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partner, developed a "readiness scale" to help target communities by determining the factors that indicate whether homeowners in a particular area are really ready to commit to energy efficiency upgrades.
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 instructional template offers instructions on how to write a press release.
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.
The report, the second in a series of reports on smart meters, presents concrete examples of findings from behavior analytics research using data that are immediately useful and relevant, including proof-of-concept analytics techniques that can be adapted and used by others, novel discoveries that answer important policy questions, and guidelines and protocols that summarize best practices for analytics and evaluation.
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.
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.
This report presents findings from the Energy Forward Consumer Messaging Study. The purpose of this study is to assess
whether Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance can deploy the Energy Forward mark as a platform or parent brand for all of its
initiatives.
This report is a comprehensive research study of energy efficiency in Northwest residential buildings. It includes a metering study, a single-family report, a manufactured homes report, and a multi-family report. In addition, it includes state-by-state energy use reports, as well as end-use consumption data.
Energy Trust of Oregon analyzes customer perceptions about energy efficiency.
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.
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.
Example proposal evaluation scoring sheet to rank qualifications of financial institution bidders for energy efficiency upgrade loan programs.
Quick summaries of strategies various programs have used to improve the efficiency of delivering efficiency.
Overview of lessons learned from EnergySmart Colorado's energy advisor model.
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 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.
As part of the Rhode Island Energy Challenge, National Grid called on its Rhode Island residential electric and gas customers to take a pledge to “Find Your Four” as part of a statewide community initiative to encourage homeowners to find four ways to save energy at home. A participant survey revealed that Rhode Island residential customers liked hearing energy conservation/efficiency information via the Challenge; the Challenge had them thinking and acting differently; and the Challenge had customers participating more actively in energy efficiency programs. This report provides more information on the campaign’s major impact in helping National Grid accomplish important goals, including those related to portfolio savings and customer-centric program outreach and engagement.
With so much to gain, how can we optimize low-income energy efficiency programs to maximize the benefits for financially vulnerable citizens, as well as program implementers and the broader population of ratepayers? This paper shares four important lessons for engaging low-income customers based on Opower’s experience in partnering with utilities to serve the low-income population.
This radio interview highlights how the NeighborWorks program in Vermont is raising awareness of home energy efficiency measures among residents through neighbor-to-neighbor outreach.
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 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 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 study of Energy Upgrade California aims to: establish baseline consumer brand awareness; understand consumer associations with the brand; and understand consumer awareness of energy management and bill savings opportunities and barriers to taking action on those opportunities.
This study reviews consumer-facing energy-focused websites and their related assets to provide a comprehensive roadmap for website development to transform and optimize the Energy Upgrade California web portal to better support the program efforts facilitating consumer and small business participation.
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 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.
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.
Over the past 30 years, program administrators have concentrated on investment behavior change -- that is getting their customers to install things like insulation and lighting systems using various behavior change tools such as marketing, education, rebates, and technical assistance to support the investment behavior change. Today, as program administrators move to expand the range of behavior change strategies in their portfolios, it is often difficult to know where to begin. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) began by detailing the range of behavior change strategies and identifying strategic opportunities.
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 report provides the results of the Consortium for Energy Efficiency-sponsored 2013 ENERGY STAR Household Survey, which collects national data on consumer recognition, understanding, and purchasing influence of the ENERGY STAR label, as well as data on messaging and product purchases.
The purpose of this position paper is to introduce a new framework efficiency screening designed to address know problems with cost-effectiveness tests.