This case study highlights the low-income programs of Efficiency Vermont, the nation’s first public energy efficiency utility, which aims to reduce these customers' high energy burden, freeing up money that they can spend on food, housing, and other necessities. These low-income programs have saved enough electricity to power nearly 8,000 Vermont households for a year and offer solutions that eliminate or reduce up-front costs for residents, a typical barrier to improving energy efficiency in low-income households. Its multifamily energy efficiency program helps renters and building owners save energy, addressing the “split incentive” barrier in which owners have little reason to invest in efficiency measures that benefit tenants who pay their own energy bills.
Showing results 1 - 56 of 56
This report provides an annual savings claim summary and includes case studies and customer testimonials from homeowners, towns, and businesses that Efficiency Vermont served in 2016.
Energy efficiency savings have grown substantially in the past ten years, and national leaders in program administration have emerged as savings levels have increased. This report reviews annual program performance for 14 leading energy efficiency program administrators, with a focus on costs, electricity savings, cost effectiveness, and portfolio design.
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.
Ivy Knoll Senior Retirement Community used PACE financing to make significant building improvements of systems that were outdated or energy inefficient. Through PACE financing, Ivy Knoll management was able to select improvements that had the highest energy savings but also came with higher upfront costs for the 7-story, all-electric building.
The multifamily sector can be hard to reach when it comes to energy efficiency programs. Besides being diverse and complex, the sector presents a unique set of challenges to efficiency investments. The result is that multifamily customers are often underserved by energy efficiency programs. Drawing on data requests and interviews with program administrators, this report summarizes the challenges to program participation and identifies best practices that programs can use to reach and retain large numbers of multifamily participants.
The Better Buildings Residential Network Social Media toolkit can be used to help residential energy efficiency programs learn to engage potential customers through social media. Social media can build brand awareness concerning home energy upgrades and the entities working on them, which can lead to more energy upgrade projects taking place in the long run. This toolkit will help program managers and their staff with decisions like what social media works best for various program needs. When aligned with other marketing and outreach efforts, social media can be a useful tool in attracting home energy upgrade customers. Note that social media changes constantly, so users of this toolkit need to regularly reassess their methods and review results to ensure goals are being met.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how to involve homeowners in staged energy efficiency upgrades and what information is appropriate to share with them at each stage.
A Field Guide to Utility-Run Behavior Programs: Making Sense of Variety
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 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.
Table summarizing financing options for Colorado residents in EnergySmart Colorado territory.
Overview of lessons learned from EnergySmart Colorado's energy advisor model.
Instructional step-by-step guide for visiting a home to discuss and install energy efficiency measures.
Example survey about a homeowner's experience with a visit from an energy advisor as part of EnergySmart in Boulder County, Colorado.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on the challenges, strategies and advantages of operating as a prime contractor.
This peer exchange call summary focused on unique fee-for-service revenues as related to program sustainability.
This peer exchange call summary focused on leveraging home inspectors and others in the real estate transaction processes.
In this video interview segment, Marty Treadway of Energy Smart Colorado discusses how to avoid contractor frustration by testing data collection tools before deployment.
This publication summarizes some of the incentives offered by Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners.
In this video interview segment, Emily Levin of Vermont Energy Investment Corporation talks about how there is no silver bullet and its about creating a new industry, which takes time.
In this video interview segment, Andy Holzhauser of Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance discusses the importance of making early investments in infrastructure (i.e., staff and technology).
In this video interview segment, Andy Holzhauser of the Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance discusses the importance of programs empowering contractors to sell upgrades and loans.
This practitioner-focused Toolkit for Residential Energy Efficiency Upgrade Programs was created by Green For All to assist new, established, and future energy efficiency programs launch and scale initiatives that can deliver the full promise of the green economy. It is intended as a practical resource that offers examples, tools, and templates that a program manager can deploy to implement a variety of aspects of their program including best practice briefs and summary documents, RFPs, contracts, and other program design and implementation templates that communities nationwide have used to create their own efficiency programs.
In this video interview segment, Andy Holzhauser of the Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance discusses how programs can create more effective loan products by first identifying existing loan products and then working to make them better for homeowners and contractors.
This peer exchange call summary focused on multifamily information technology tools for project information, marketing, assessment, tracking and evaluation.
This peer exchange call summary focused on activities to streamline service delivery to customers.
EnergySmart Colorado uses surveys and a customer database to get feedback from homeowners that helps fine-tune program services and operations.
This presentation includes the brands, website addresses, and images for most of the Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners.
This guide from Boulder County's EnergySmart service is an example of expectations and guidelines for contractor operations.
Clean Energy Works Oregon's (now Enhabit's) experience implementing an on-bill financing program.
Survey for consultants participating in Green Madison and Me2 programs about their experiences with the programs.
How to Design and Market Energy Efficiency Programs to Specific Neighborhoods
This webcast offers information on successful marketing strategies, as well as design considerations and market research insights for creating and marketing successful projects in specific neighborhoods.
Presentation providing an overview of financing programs, a strategy for continuous improvement, tools for program management, a risk management strategy, and common risks associated with financing programs.
This presentation provides a list of resources and tips for running a social media campaign.
Outlines five public-private financing mechanism options for energy efficiency upgrades programs, including on-bill financing, PACE financing, and loan loss reserve funds.
What's Working in Residential Energy Efficiency Upgrade Programs: Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance
Workforce Development and Sales Training for Energy Efficiency Contractors
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.
Designing Effective Incentives to Drive Residential Retrofit Program Participation
This webcast covers information about designing effective incentives to drive residential retrofit program participation.
Door-to-Door Outreach and Tracking Impacts
This webcast discusses door-to-door campaigns and how to track the impacts of these campaigns.
This guide provides an assessment of various approaches to Marketing & Outreach for home energy efficiency improvements.
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.
Marketing, Communication, and Outreach: Lessons Learned In and Outside Energy Efficiency
This webcast presents lessons learned in marketing, communication, and outreach, including lessons related to marketing plans.
A sample request for proposals from Boulder County, Colorado, to develop an energy efficiency and renewable energy rebate program.