Sample business plan framework for a program seeking to operate as a not-for-profit entity.

This report presents the results of a scoping study to assess the need for national databases that can support best practices in energy efficiency program evaluation, measurement, and verification (EM&V).

Example of an implementation plan developed by Seattle's Community Power Works at the beginning of the implementation of its Better Buildings Neighborhood Program.

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 case study describes Austin Energy's short-term, comprehensive rebate/financing offer to jump-start participation and valuable lessons learned along the way.

This case study discusses strategies that Austin Energy, a municipally owned utility, used to collaborate closely with building contractors to launch a new Best Offer Ever promotion quickly and effectively.

This case study describes an innovative program design used by BetterBuildings for Michigan to "sweep" neighborhoods in order to effectively reach its residential audience and achieve an 80% participation rate among those canvassed.

This case study discusses the strategies Clean Energy Works Oregon's (now Enhabit's) used to actively engage contractors to make the program successful (e.g., balancing contractors' work priorities, enforcing quality standards).

Building on its understanding of homeowners in Rutland County, Vermont, NeighborWorks of Western Vermont (NWWVT) enlisted respected local citizens and organizations to spread the word about home energy efficiency upgrade opportunities, an effort that helped drive demand for nearly 200 home upgrades in just six months

This case study shares how Seattle's Community Power Works engaged a vast network of partners to build on existing capacity and knowledge, extending the reach of its program in a short period of time.

This market assessment for the St. Louis Residential Energy Efficiency Loan Program identifies the customers and potential demand for an energy efficiency upgrade financing program.

This peer exchange call focused on strategies and challenges related to multi-family programs.

This peer exchange call summary focused on what energy efficiency programs are doing to target low- and moderate-income households.

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.

Table showing business model frameworks, their relevance, key metrics, and questions for consideration.

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.

Presentation aimed at program administrators that highlights the elements of an income statement, methods for forecasting costs and revenues, the importance of performance measurement, and potential revenue streams.

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.

An overview of tools and approaches used to transform the energy efficiency market in Chicago.

Presentation on the organization, funding structure, and market focus of the Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance.

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 webcast reports on the energy efficiency services sector workforce size, expectations for growth, and training needs and features a case studies from Efficiency Vermont and Efficiency Maine.

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.

A variety of new feedback initiatives, including real-time web-based or in-home feedback devices and enhanced billing approaches, are making energy resources visible to residential consumers throughout the United States. These initiatives are opening the door to potential energy savings that, on average, have reduced individual household electricity consumption 4 to 12%. In so doing, feedback is proving a critical first step in engaging and empowering consumers to thoughtfully manage their energy use.

A project planning timetable template from Austin Energy that reflects all program planning activities, including marketing.

The Connecticut Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge developed this form for authorization to obtain household energy information.

The Connecticut Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge developed this form for authorization to obtain household energy information.

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.

Presentation describing sustainable revenue sources for local energy alliances.

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).

Example Request for Proposal (RFP) to provide Boulder County, Colorado with support services for its Retrofit Ramp Up Program including a social mobilization campaign, database management services, and marketing/public relations services for the both the residential and commercial parts of the Program.

This market assessment for CharlestonSAVES identifies the customers and potential demand for an energy efficiency upgrade financing program.

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

This webcast discusses door-to-door campaigns and how to track the impacts of these campaigns.

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

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.

This webcast presents the guidelines for retrieving customer usage data from utilities.

Webcast on how to design a community energy alliance.

This presentation outlines the steps Connecticut's Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge program took to obtain and sort useful feedback from surveys and volunteer observations.

Sample script Los Angeles County used to survey homeowners about energy issues.

This presentation describes California property owners' specific interest, awareness, and perceptions regarding energy use, energy efficiency, home energy upgrades, and related topics.

This report describes California property owners' specific interest, awareness, and perceptions regarding energy use, energy efficiency, home energy upgrades, and related topics. The study results were used for program design and to design and support marketing and outreach campaigns that encouraged energy upgrades

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.

Two visual flow charts, one that illustrates the process starting with customer interest to final incentive payment, and another that illustrates the program's quality assurance process.

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 DOE Technical Assistance Program webcast covers why quality assurance is important for residential upgrade programs, how to define realistic goals, and the key elements of a QA program.

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

This report presents a review of selected home energy auditing tools. The energy audit tools reviewed in this study include REM/Rate, BEACON Home Energy Advisor, EnergyInsights, Home Energy Tune-uP, EnergyGauge, TREAT, the National Energy Audit Tool (NEAT), Home Energy Saver Professional (HESPro), and RealHomeAnalyzer.

This webcast provides information on why outreach is important for program success and how programs can promote their efforts.

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

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.

This one page form is used by Austin Energy to document Home Performance With Energy Star analysis results.

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.

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 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.

This paper models the cost-effectiveness of prototypical whole-house retrofit programs. The analysis demonstrates the need to include targeted sub-sectors that are less efficient, more likely to participate, and therefore most cost effective; to analyze individual measures tailored to the climate and building stock and select only the most efficient measures; to estimate performance goals.

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.

Sample RFP from Michigan Saves for a third-party to conduct an evaluability assessment and process evaluation for the program during the first phase of implementation.

This guide helps states and localities develop voluntary or mandatory programs that go well beyond minimum code requirements for new buildings. It addresses energy efficiency materials and resource conservation, water efficiency, indoor environmental quality, and site development and land use.

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 report provides an overview of market segmentation purpose, examples and methodologies.

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 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 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.

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.

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 report provides comprehensive information on state, federal, local, and utility incentives and policies that are in place to support renewable energy and energy efficiency.

This paper presents the results of a comprehensive study of the energy-related needs of California’s low-income population. This study was commissioned to direct future policy regarding the various low-income energy programs offered in the state. These programs include the California Alternate Rate for Energy (CARE) Program, which provides a rate discount to qualified low-income customers, and the Low-Income Energy Efficiency (LIEE) Program, which installs weatherization and energy efficiency measures in qualified dwellings at no charge.

This paper presents the results of a comprehensive study of the energy-related needs of CaliforniaÕs low-income population. This study was commissioned to direct future policy regarding the various low-income energy programs offered in the state. These programs include the California Alternate Rate for Energy (CARE) Program, which provides a rate discount to qualified low-income customers, and the Low-Income Energy Efficiency (LIEE) Program, which installs weatherization and energy efficiency measures in qualified dwellings at no charge.

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 guide details and explains the five types of general program evaluations and provides guidance on selecting the type of evaluation suited to the program to be evaluated, given the type of information required and budget limitations. It is intended for use by managers of both deployment and R&D programs within the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), although most of the examples of evaluations pertain to deployment programs.

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 resource includes a list of the different types of contractors you may need to hire to improve your home. Under each type is a brief description of the service they provide and questions or suggestions for working with them.

These tips from ENERGY STAR will help you find the right HVAC contractor, get quality and value from the contractor and your new equipment, and get a signed agreement on the work to be done.

A variety of new feedback initiatives, including real-time web-based or in-home feedback devices and enhanced billing approaches, are making energy resources visible to residential consumers throughout the United States. These initiatives are opening the door to potential energy savings that, on average, have reduced individual household electricity consumption 4 to 12%. In so doing, feedback is proving a critical first step in engaging and empowering consumers to thoughtfully manage their energy use.

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.

The business model of Clean Energy Works Oregon (CEWO), a non-profit established to reduce energy waste by encouraging homeowners to take direct action. Advertising the triple-bottom-line benefits of energy retrofits, CEWO guides homeowners throughout the entire retrofit process and provides them easy, no-money down financing options.

This worksheet was designed to help building owners and managers collect data to benchmark buildings using EPA's ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager. The information in this worksheet is used to establish a building's profile in Portfolio Manager, which is critical to calculating benchmarks of key metrics such as energy intensity and costs, water use, and carbon emissions.

To help inform and prompt discussion across a range of audiences on the health co-benefits from residential EE investments, this paper reviews research studies of residential EE and related ventilation upgrades, discusses ways that programs have monetized occupant health co-benefits, and highlights innovative programs that combine EE and health-focused home repairs. The paper concludes with identifying research gaps and strategies to help advance such work.

Mission and goals of the county-wide program RePower Kitsap.

This website provides current data on a wide range of national housing and demographic characteristics.