This report documents the results of an analysis of the electric end-use energy efficiency potential in the U.S. single-family detached housing stock. Technical and economic potential estimates inform the role that residential energy efficiency plays in addressing the objectives of reliable, affordable, and clean electricity for residential end uses.

This report is part of a series of "baseline" reports intended to inform the second installment of the Quadrennial Energy Review (QER 1.2). QER 1.2 provides a comprehensive review of the nation's electricity system and cover the current state and key trends related to the electricity system, including generation, transmission, distribution, grid operations and planning, and end use. The baseline reports provide an overview of elements of the electricity system. This report focuses on end uses, electricity consumption, electric energy efficiency, distributed energy resources (DERs) (such as demand response, distributed generation, and distributed storage), and evaluation, measurement, and verification (EM&V) methods for energy efficiency and DERs.

This presentation is a customizable tool for energy efficiency programs to convey the value of energy information to real estate professionals, and information on resources real estate professionals can use for further learning.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on key challenges and opportunities for working with HVAC contractors to shift toward high-impact energy-efficient HVAC solutions. Speakers include DOE and the Energy Trust of Oregon.

This report reviews the costs and benefits of EmPOWER Maryland through 2015 with a focus on statewide benefits.

This report updates ACEEE's 2013 assessment of multifamily energy efficiency programs in US metropolitan areas with the most multifamily households. Using housing, policy, and utility-sector data from 2014 and 2015, this report documents how these programs have changed in the context of dynamic housing markets and statewide policy environments. The report also offers an analysis of the number, spending, offerings, and targeted participants of current programs and their potential for further expansion.

The NorthernSTAR and U.S. Department of Energy Building America Program partnership investigated a new model to deploy building science-guided performance solutions to homeowners. This research explored three aspects to market delivery:
1. Understand the homeowner's motivations regarding investing in building science-based performance upgrades.
2. Determine a rapidly scalable approach to engage large numbers of homeowners directly through existing customer networks.
3. Access a business model that will manage all aspects of the contractor-homeowner performance professional interface to ensure good upgrade decisions throughout time.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on challenges of energy upgrades in affordable and low-income multifamily properties.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how home energy upgrade programs can interact and connect with the real estate market.

The work presented in this webinar is a collaborative endeavor by the ARIES Building America team and two major affordable housing providers: Habitat for Humanity International and the factory building industry. The effort is exploring options for making major reductions in space conditioning energy use (≥ 50%) while holding the line on home affordability. Specifically, the project will develop a high-performance integrated design--effectively combining an ultra-efficient thermal envelope, a very low capacity, highly efficient mechanical system, an innovative distribution system, and affordable heat recovery ventilation--and set in motion steps to rapidly move this innovation to market.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on ensuring contractor networks work for both energy efficiency programs and participating contractors.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on changing homeowner behaviors to reduce energy demands. It featured speakers from City of Fort Collins Utilities,  American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, and the Rocky Mountain Institute.

This report details opportunities for scaling up program activity and increasing savings from programs reaching the people who need it most. It discussed best practices from existing programs for overcoming many of the key challenges that program administrators face, including how to address housing deficiencies that prevent energy efficiency upgrades, how to address cost effectiveness challenges, and how to serve hard-to-reach households.

Focusing on Colorado Springs, Colorado, as a case study, the U.S. Department of Energy's Building America research team IBACOS suggests a win-win between a builder's investment in energy efficiency and that builder's ability to sell homes. Although this research did not ultimately determine why a correlation may exist, a builder's investment in voluntary energy-efficiency programs correlated with that builder's ability to survive the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009. This report explores the relationship between energy-efficiency ratings and the market performance of several builders in Colorado Springs.

This report explores how governments and energy efficiency implementers could help stakeholders better analyze and act upon building performance data to unlock savings.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how energy efficiency could be used to achieve other goals. It features speakers from the City of Orlando and Seattle City Light.

Several recent studies purport to show that particular energy efficiency programs and policies do not work or are too expensive. This short paper is written for people who are not evaluation experts and are trying to understand what conclusions they can take from these studies. We examine many of these papers and find that while they do have some useful findings, they often include a variety of unreasonable assumptions or outright mistakes that undermine their conclusions. Based on this review, we offer several recommendations on ways we can constructively move forward.

The report, based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and a survey of tens of thousands of businesses across the country, provides detailed breakdowns of clean energy jobs not available previously, and it was developed and released in connection with a major U.S. Department of Energy study of all energy jobs in America.

This case study addresses multifamily energy upgrade experiences by two members of the Better Buildings Residential Network—Elevate Energy and the International Center for Appropriate and Sustainable Technology (ICAST).

Using the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) free Home Energy Score, home inspectors can provide a miles-per-gallon type rating to their clients. By offering the rating and accompanying recommendations for efficiency improvements, home inspectors can help clients become eligible for mortgage incentives from FHA.

Through field-testing and analysis, this project evaluated whole-building approaches and estimated the relative contributions of select technologies toward reducing energy use related to space conditioning in new manufactured homes. Three lab houses of varying designs were built and tested side-by-side under controlled conditions in Russellville, Alabama. The tests provided a valuable indicator of how changes in the construction of manufactured homes can contribute to significant reductions in energy use.

This case study features New York City Energy Efficiency Corporation (NYCEEC), a member that focuses on financing energy efficiency and clean energy upgrades for multifamily buildings in the city and surrounding communities.

Combining health and home performance (HHP) offers unprecedented potential to increase market size and benefits. Poorly performing homes due to roofing, heating, electrical, or water issues, are associated with issues, such as respiratory illness, asthma, and injury. DOE is undertaking three initiatives: 1) A review of existing HHP literature; 2) Stakeholder engagement; and 3) Developing a roadmap to expand HHP.

The primary objective of the quantitative research phase of this survey was to get market-based feedback and insights in the following areas to assist the industry in better serving its constituents, including: insights as to major challenges that industry is facing and potential support that organizations could provide and feedback on how industry organizations could add value for constituents in the future.

Energy retrofits can harm or help resident health. Beyond preventing harm, this presentation covers how to use energy retrofits as an opportunity to improve the lives of your building residents and the surrounding community. It focuses on different ways that organizations are using energy efficiency to improve their communities through positive health outcomes and job creation.

A car is only as efficient as its driver and its mechanic; so, too, for buildings. This presentation covers best practices and reviews case studies on engaging building residents and training facilities managers to keep buildings running efficiently and meeting Better Buildings Challenge goals.

Energy efficiency programs can communicate with jargon and technical terminology, which puts off homeowners. However, marketing best practices suggest wording based on improved consumer experience is more effective. This presentation covers seven proven communications strategies for causing behavior change.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on quality assurance of energy efficiency services.

Better Buildings Home Upgrade Program Accelerator partners, Build It Green, Enhabit, and NeighborWorks of Western Vermont, discussed steps for streamlining program processes, and strategies to improve data management, contractor relationships, and customer experiences. Tools and resources were presented as examples of how these ideas can be implemented in programs across the country.

Take you on a tour of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Residential Program Solution Center content and functionality and explore how you can use the Solution Center to help design, implement, and evaluate residential energy efficiency programs. Program examples focus on contractor engagement and workforce development. Learn how to support and partner with the workforce who will deliver your program’s energy efficiency services by understanding their capacity, recruiting contractor partners, enabling technical training and business development support, and refining program processes over time.

This handout summarizes the key lessons learned regarding workforce development contained in the Better Buildings Residential Program Solution Center.

This document features lessons learned shared by Better Buildings Residential Network members during Peer Exchange Calls held during Autumn 2016.

Energy burden is the percentage of household income spent on home energy bills. In this report, ACEEE, along with the Energy Efficiency for All coalition, measures the energy burden of households in 48 of the largest American cities. The report finds that low-income, African-American, Latino, low-income multifamily, and renter households all spend a greater proportion of their income on utilities than the average family. The report also identifies energy efficiency as an underutilized strategy that can help reduce high energy burdens by as much as 30%. Given this potential, the report goes on to describe policies and programs to ramp up energy efficiency investments in low-income and underserved communities.

The report analyzes data from the U.S. Census BureauÕs 2011 and 2013 American Housing Survey to determine energy burden values for 48 of the largest U.S. Cities. On average, low-income households pay 7.2 percent of household income on utilitiesÑmore than twice as much as the median household and three times as much as higher income households. If low-income housing stock were brought up to the efficiency level of the average U.S. home, this would eliminate 35 percent of the average low-income energy burden of low-income households. The second half of the report focuses on strategies for alleviating high energy burdens including policies and programs to increase the impact of energy efficiency initiatives in these communities.

The Better Building Clean Energy for Low Income Communities Accelerator (CELICA) was launched in 2016 to help state and local partners across the nation meet their goals for increasing uptake of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies in low and moderate income communities. As a part of the Accelerator, DOE created a set of low and moderate income (LMI) energy data profiles to assist partners with understanding their LMI community characteristics. This LMI energy policy and program planning tool provides interactive state, county and city level worksheets with graphs and data including number of households at different income levels and numbers of homeowners versus renters. It provides a breakdown based on fuel type, building type, and construction year. It also provides average monthly energy expenditures and energy burden (percentage of income spent on energy).

The Better Buildings Home Energy Information Accelerator aims to make energy data more accessible to home buyers, realtors and others. This presentation covers how Colorado launched a statewide residential labeling initiative that made home energy data available at point of sale, and how partnerships in the Northeast are incorporating energy efficiency into the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), with Vermont pioneering the regional effort.

This report was developed to help inform national stakeholders about the strategies that have been used to achieve deep energy savings in the multifamily housing sector through energy efficiency upgrades. These strategies could be used as models in areas where utility program administrators and policymakers seek to achieve deep energy savings in the multifamily building stock for the purposes of reducing energy costs, creating comfortable and healthy homes, meeting regulatory requirements, or reducing the environmental impacts of energy consumption. This report includes a national multifamily market characterization, barriers and opportunities for program and policy efforts, and eight exemplary case studies from across the country.

The research described in this report holds great potential to significantly improve the process for including energy efficiency in developing and implementing federally funded multifamily rehabilitation projects through the USDA, the U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Low Income Housing Tax Credit, and other programs.

The benefits of energy efficiency upgrades beyond money and energy savings include non-energy benefits that are often not communicated well. Multiple non-energy benefits include lower home maintenance costs, improved air quality and less sick days for adults and children, greater resiliency, and lower emissions. This presentation covers examples of how your program can fully realize the potential from all of these multiple non-energy benefits.

Residential air-source heat pumps (ASHP) are a heating and air-conditioning technology that use electricity to provide a combination of space heating and cooling to homes. A new generation of ASHPs has come to market over the past five years. This report evaluates the key market barriers as well as potential opportunities to leverage. Based on an assessment of the regional ASHP market, it is clear that while ASHPs have established a viable and growing market, there remains a significant opportunity to further accelerate adoption of the technology and in the process achieve energy and cost savings to the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region.

Energy efficiency data can inform real estate transactions – including underwriting and appraisal, but each sector relies on its own sets of tools, data and specifications. The Home Energy Information Accelerator addresses how reliable energy information can get into the hands of decision-makers, and what types of policy, technical, and other changes are needed to make energy information useful in the real estate transaction.

This report, informed by leading research and real-world examples, highlights practical online and in-person tactics that contractors can use to promote social interaction and social comparison among homeowners to make energy upgrades a "must-have" in U.S. homes.

This webinar covers the Multifamily Energy Efficiency Retrofits: Barriers and Opportunities for Deep Energy Savings report published in 2016.n

This peer exchange call summary focused on best practices for building and maintaining a robust contractor network.

This report provides information and tools for policymakers, regulators, utilities, shared renewable energy developers, program administrators and others to support the adoption and implementation of shared renewables programs specifically designed to provide tangible benefits to low income and moderate income individuals and households.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on strategies for scaling up and growing residential energy efficiency programs or contracting businesses. It covered PG&E's Residential Energy Efficiency Program's Pay for Performance (P4P) program. It also covered priority areas to consider when scaling up a program, such as contractor sales and marketing training and maintaining quality.

State and Utility Pollution Reduction Calculator Version 2 (SUPR 2) helps policymakers, state governments, utility owners, and other stakeholders understand the costs and benefits of various residential and commercial energy efficiency technologies and policies that will reduce carbon emissions from the power sector.

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

Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) programs provide affordable and accessible financing for home energy efficiency upgrades that improve value, comfort and durability, and create jobs. PACE is a scalable financing mechanism with over 50,000 projects and $1 billion invested in California, and multifamily housing projects in New York and other states. This session discussed successful PACE programs, designs, and FHA's guidance.

The Better Buildings Neighborhood Program featured 41 competitively selected grantees that developed sustainable energy efficiency upgrade programs across the U.S. from 2010-14. This presentation covers what worked and what didn’t, and key success factors identified by an independent evaluation.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on strategies for contractor training.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on ideas for future peer exchange calls.

This report represents NEEP’s annual assessment of the major policy developments of 2014, as well as its look into the immediate future, where NEEP gauge states’ progress toward capturing cost-effective energy efficiency as a first-order resource. While looking at the region as a whole, NEEP also provides summary and analysis of some of the biggest building energy efficiency successes and setbacks from Maine to Maryland — including significant energy efficiency legislation and regulations and changes in funding levels for energy efficiency programs.

This report is targeted at both policymakers and program administrators who are less familiar with secondary markets and their significance in the energy efficiency context, as well as those that are more familiar with these concepts and may be actively considering secondary market strategies. It covers how efficient access to capital from secondary markets -- reselling energy loans to investors to replenish program funds -- is being advanced as an important enabler of the energy efficiency industry “at scale.”

This study was conducted on behalf of the Colorado Energy Office to provide an analysis of the impact of energy efficiency on the home buying process. It highlights the appraisers’ dependence on Realtor‐supplied data and clearly illustrates the need for appraisers to be competent on items related to energy efficiency; in as far as these items are relevant to the appraiser’s specific assignment, scope of work and market area.

This case study interview shares how GTECH (Growth Through Energy and Community Health) Strategies, a Better Buildings Residential Network member, developed and maintains strong strategic partnerships with trusted local companies and organizations to meet a shared goal of completing 100 home energy upgrade projects.

This webcast highlights effective efforts by state and local agencies, non-profits, and utilities to bring energy efficiency and renewable energy to low-income households. It explores the topic of linking and leveraging energy efficiency and renewable energy programs for limited-income households, including the need to coordinate with other energy assistance programs. It also presents case studies of organizations that have successfully advanced connections among available programs and funding sources.

The goal of the Building Science Translator is to begin this process by providing a new glossary of ‘Power Words’ that can be used across the industry to consistently reinforce the value of high-performance homes. This includes applying this new language consistently to all consumer-facing materials used by government programs and industry alike.

This webcast covers DOE's new white paper, Capturing Energy Efficiency in Residential Real Estate Transactions, which highlights how residential energy efficiency programs can help make homes' energy efficiency visible to appraisers, real estate agents, mortgage lenders, homebuyers and sellers. The webcast provides examples of programs around the U.S. that are successfully engaging the real estate community and overcoming barriers to valuing energy efficiency in the home resale process.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how to market energy efficiency upgrades through affiliate partners and other established institutions.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how to generate energy upgrade customer leads and allocate those leads to contractors.

This presentation focused on the Guide for Benchmarking Residential Program Progress with Examples and its step-by-step guidance for setting up an effective benchmarking process.

This online guide provides step-by-step guidance and resources for local governments to plan, implement, and evaluate climate, energy, and sustainability projects and programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change impacts. It captures lessons learned and effective strategies used by local governments, breaks down program implementation into concrete steps, and curates resources to help local governments find the information they need. The framework was developed with extensive input from local government stakeholders, including EPA’s Climate Showcase Communities.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on an overview of the Building America Technology to Market Roadmaps.

High energy users in single-family homes present the greatest opportunities for energy and cost savings, yet relatively little is known about what is happening in these homes or how energy efficiency and utility programs can engage these consumers. In this on-demand webcast, hear the results of a groundbreaking field study of 100 high-consumption homes in Minnesota. The webcast will discuss possible causes and the technical and behavioral opportunities to reduce usage. Also, it will introduce the households studied to provide a holistic introduction to this utility customer group.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focuses on how mentoring on sales skills and business management helped one contractor increase sales and become more profitable. The call also covered top tips for supporting contractors, such as helping contractors develop systems to be more efficient in completing projects and creating a service plan with customers for additional improvements in the future.

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.

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 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 summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on an overview of the Better Buildings Residential Network.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on an overview of the Better Buildings Residential Network.

This presentation discusses Build It Green's new model for contractor engagement that provides more support to higher performing contractors and strategies the organization is using to address issues with contractor data reporting and tracking.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on methods, reactions and legal considerations of contractor rating and feedback systems.

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

This presentation describes how APS' decision to switch to flexible requirements for energy assessment and modeling software and data transfer using HPXML standards reduced administrative time and improved contractor satisfaction.

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.

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.

This contractor process flowchart from EnergySmart Colorado includes the phases of contractor qualifications review and preparation, site work, and follow up.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on collaborating with Efficiency First chapters and other trade organizations effectively.

In this Focus Series interview, Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance (GCEA) leaders describe how GCEA helped jump-start the region's home performance contracting market by removing a common barrier to entry for contractors -- investing in new equipment.

This fact sheet, developed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP), includes a comprehensive set of tools and resources aimed at enhancing the training and work quality standards to be utilized throughout the home energy upgrade industry.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on training and mentoring energy assessors, contractors and their partners.

This guide assists with developing an implementation plan for a Home Performance with ENERGY STAR program. It covers key elements of the plan, including the scope and objectives of the program and the policies and procedures that will ensure its success, including co-marketing and brand guidelines (section 1), workforce development and contractor engagement (section 3), assessment and report requirements (section 4), installation specifications and test-out procedures (section 5), and quality assurance (section 6).

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on assistance, materials and other initiatives the Better Buildings Residential Network could offer.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on integrating residential energy efficiency programs with the real estate market.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on targeted workforce training and recruitment.

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.

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 summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on quality assurance and control, standardization of upgrades and workforce expectations.

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.

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.

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

This article provides 10 tips home energy contractors can use to update their marketing outreach and improve their customer service.