Outlines five public-private financing mechanism options for energy efficiency upgrades programs, including on-bill financing, PACE financing, and loan loss reserve funds.

Through its target audience research, Rutland, Vermont's NeighborWorks H.E.A.T. Squad learned that neighbors are the most trusted messengers of energy efficiency upgrade information, rather than governments or utilities.

This paper describes the stakes and stakeholders involved in greening the MLS systems, analyzes the challenges involved, and summarizes what the green building stakeholder community can learn from a collaborative approach to greening MLS systems. This discussion concludes with a proposed framework for replicating collaborative stakeholder approaches, and suggests we are close to a breakthrough where states can now truly draw from the precedents to implement changes with speed and to scale.

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

This ENERGY STAR presentation provides an overview of the power of social media to promote energy efficiency with programmatic examples offered by expert presenters.

This report presents results, recommendations, and case studies of energy efficiency financing programs.

This peer exchange call summary focused on available program interest rates and how to lower those rates.

This report identifies and discusses factors that should be considered in evaluating model choices for administering and implementing ratepayer funded energy efficiency programs.

This peer exchange call summary focused on the different types of evaluation methods for residential and commercial programs.

This peer exchange call summary focused on establishing the challenges, strategies and key topics related to the workforce for future peer exchange calls.

This peer exchange call summary focused on establishing the challenges, strategies and key topics related to working with utilities for future peer exchange calls.

This peer exchange call summary focused on integrating income-qualified programs into neighborhood sweeps.

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

This paper describes a wide variety of behavior change insights potentially applicable to the energy efficiency program context, provides examples of efficiency programs that have applied these insights, and explores some untapped opportunities to achieve energy savings through behavior change.

This paper, which is based on detailed case studies of nine existing state and local programs, presents recommendations for energy upgrade programs to facilitate industry growth and support contractor business models.

Flowcharts showing the key program elements (financing; workforce development; marketing and outreach; and data, evaluation; and reporting).

Courtesy of Clean Energy Solutions. This presentation provides an overview of topics related to building the workforce for energy efficiency programs, including market characterization, stakeholder engagement, training and certification, and community workforce agreements. It includes information on the experience of Clean Energy Works Oregon (now Enhabit) in Portland, Oregon.

A marketing and communications plan from Clean Energy Works Oregon (now Enhabit) outlines the program's marketing vision and objectives, as well as the strategies the program planned to undertake to meet these goals.

This agreement outlines the goals, contractor standards, hiring standards, training program standards, and procedures for contractor participation in Seattle's Community Power Works program. As a "high-road" agreement, the employment and contracting standards are designed to ensure broad access to economic opportunities for all types of businesses and workers, support training on sustainable career paths, and ensure high-quality work.

This is a community workforce agreement between the City of Milwaukee and the Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corporation.

This fact sheet provides information about energy efficiency, explains how utility and state investment in energy efficiency helps consumers, and describes what to expect from utility or state efficiency programs.

This presentation provides information on strategies to successfully recruit contractors. Topics include setting goals, identifying contractors, contacting contractors, and following up with contractors.

This report summarizes existing research and discusses current practices, opportunities, and barriers to coordinating energy efficiency and demand response programs.

This webcast discusses secondary markets as a means for private investors to participate in and fund energy efficiency loan programs.

This report summarizes the approaches used by energy efficiency program administrators when assessing the range of financial and other incentives to be used in energy efficiency programs.

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

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

This guide provides an assessment of various approaches to Marketing & Outreach for home energy efficiency improvements.

This webinar offers an introduction to EM&V basics, including data collection, tracking tools, M&V approaches, and reporting energy savings.

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

This report presents best practices for operating successful portfolio-level efficiency programs, including assessing efficiency potential, cost-effectiveness screening, and developing a portfolio of approaches.

This guide provides background on the home improvement market in the U.S. and Canada and end users and systems in existing homes, as well as a description of energy efficiency program approaches and strategies.

A report examining workforce certifications, skills benchmarks, and credentialing efforts in renewable energy and energy efficiency programs nationwide and offering recommendations.

Clean Energy Works Oregon (now Enhabit) developed consumer profiles based on research the program conducted on its target audience.

Summary of the standards that support job quality, equitable access and quality assurance in several residential energy efficiency programs from different parts of the country.

This webcast highlights lessons learned from programs that have used loan loss reserve funds.

This presentation summarizes the market research that was performed by various Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners.

This webcast highlights programs that actively engage the contractor community in program design and implementation. Several contractors share their views on best practices for Marketing & Outreach.

This report shares the results of focus groups that were convened by the U.S. Department of Energy to identify what motivates people to undertake home energy improvements.

This report describes the process evaluation of a pilot project in Portland Oregon that informed the refinement and expansion of the program statewide into Clean Energy Works Oregon (now Enhabit).

This is an example of an RFP for workforce development and other program elements. The RFP covers recruitment, outreach and marketing oriented to homeowners and workers, and service delivery of energy assessments and upgrades.

This report provides an overview of evaluation, measurement, and verification approaches used to estimate the load impacts and effectiveness of energy efficiency programs.

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

A sample request for proposals from Boulder County, Colorado, to develop an energy efficiency and renewable energy rebate program.

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

This article discusses valuing high performance houses in the appraisal process.

This guide provides energy efficiency program design guidance for local and regional programs. It focuses on cost-saving energy efficiency strategies, creation of high quality jobs, and services for the low-income sector.

The report presents an analysis of the market performance of third-party certified sustainable residential properties in the Portland and Seattle metropolitan areas. In each location, a sample of third-party certified homes was selected and comparable homes were found. The author documents that certified homes in the Seattle metro area sold at a price premium of 9.6% when compared to noncertified counterparts.

This report highlights road-tested strategies, resources, and tools states can use to adopt cost-effective energy efficiency and clean energy programs for their buildings, facilities, and operations.

These training materials include over 30 lesson plans for high school and college students, building and trade professionals, and clean energy employers. Topics include energy efficiency measure installation and best practices in developing train-the-trainer programs for construction trade programs at vocational schools, to programs for undergraduate and graduate students that address the engineering, business, and economics of clean energy.

This report summarizes the issues and approaches involved in motivating customers to reduce the total energy they consume through energy prices and rate design.

This report considers consumers' perspectives on policy and regulatory issues associated with the administration of energy efficiency investments funded by ratepayers of electric and natural gas utilities.

This paper reviews 18 residential energy efficiency financing programs and attempts to describe the limitations and strengths of existing programs.

This report summarizes the scale and economic value of energy efficiency for reducing carbon emissions and discusses barriers to achieving the potential for cost-effective energy efficiency.

Webcast with information on financing structure design for four energy efficiency upgrade programs, including methods used to conduct market evaluations.

This guide helps state and local authorities and energy efficiency program administrators choose successful programs in response to energy efficiency program funding opportunities through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. It provides information and lessons learned about ten different types of programs--such as Home Performance with ENERGY STAR--across the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors.

Report describing a goal of achieving all cost-effective energy efficiency by 2025; presents ten implementation goals for states, utilities, and other stakeholders to consider to achieve this goal, and describes what 2025 might look like if the goal is achieved.

This report discusses the five standard tests used to assess the cost-effectiveness of energy efficiency, how states use the tests, and how the tests can determine the cost-effectiveness of efficiency measures.

This report describes the effects of utility spending on efficiency programs, how those effects could constitute barriers to investment in energy efficiency, and how policy mechanisms can reduce these barriers.

This report provides guidance on determining the efficiency potential in a utility footprint, state, or region; evaluating efficiency as a supply-side resource; and developing detailed efficiency program plans.

This report describes the key issues, best practices, and main process steps for integrating energy efficiency into resource planning on an equal basis with other resources.

Research traditions across the social sciences have explored the drivers of individual behavior change and proposed different models of decision making. In this paper, four diverse perspectives are reviewed: conventional and behavioral economics, technology adoption theory and attitude-based decision making, social and environmental psychology, and sociology. This paper concludes with how to develop a more integrated approach to both behavioral change research and intervention design in a residential energy context.

The purpose of this study is to furnish comprehensive information on ratepayer-funded low-income energy programs. This study includes information on and analysis of the energy needs of low-income households, the legal and regulatory framework supporting ratepayer-funded programs, program design options, and the findings from evaluations of program effectiveness.

This two-volume report distills the practices that have been shown to work in many settings to implement the renovation of affordable housing. These best practices are designed to address the challenges to rehab at its development, construction, and occupancy stages. Volume 1 is a comprehensive resource guide to state, local, and federal tools for overcoming barriers. Volume 2 provides analyses of key rehab resources and barriers, and case studies of state and local efforts to overcome major regulatory impediments.

This calculator provides a simplified tool to demonstrate the business case for energy efficiency from the perspective of the consumer, the utility, and society.

This article discusses the content, structure, and educational techniques for designing an educational curriculum around energy efficient building and design. It includes an outline of classes in the syllabus and an assessment test used at Yavapai Community College in Prescott, AZ.

The Buildings Performance Database (BPD) is the largest national dataset of real building performance data, and enables users to perform statistical analysis on an anonymous dataset of hundreds of thousands of commercial and residential buildings from across the country. One of the most powerful applications of the tool is custom peer group analysis, in which users can examine specific building types and geographic areas, compare performance trends among similar buildings, identify and prioritize cost-saving energy efficiency improvements, and assess the range of likely savings from these improvements.