This brief characterizes and provides an update on the industry, as well as provides case studies illustrating the information publicly available about various types of experience with use of auto measurement and verification (M&V) tools.

This guidance document provides background and instructions for program administrators to use the data collected by smart thermostats to calculate energy savings for a program.

This paper examines criteria for a comparative assessment of multiple financing programs for energy efficiency, developed through a statewide public process in California.

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 report aims to improve low and moderate income (LMI) stakeholdersÕ understanding of financing options for LMI communities. It discusses the advantages and disadvantages of different options, consumer protections to consider, and lessons learned. LMI stakeholders addressed by this report include state and local policymakers, state utility regulators, program administrators, financial institutions, and consumer advocates.

This Better Buildings Residential Network Toolkit provides practical guidance and resources for residential energy efficiency programs to expand their understanding of evaluations and incorporate learning as a critical component of their analysis. By embedding learning into the evaluation process, programs are able to create a continuous cycle of planning and improvement that leads to greater overall program impact.

This market snapshot of HVAC installation verification tools illustratively presents the categories and uses for the growing market of tools.         

This HVAC verifications tool selection guide includes a cross-walk of tool categories with target user audience, benefits and features. This matrix can assist contractors, programs, utilities and others in selecting the appropriate resources to support installation and performance measurement.

This issue brief covers the opportunities for Pay-for-Performance (P4P) efficiency programs to increase energy savings.

This report provides a comprehensive review and analysis of home energy upgrade programs with proven track records, focusing on those with robustly verified savings and constituting good examples for replication. This meta-analysis describes program models and implementation strategies for direct install upgrades; heating, HVAC replacement and early retirement; and comprehensive, whole-home upgrades.

This paper is a baseline assessment of electric and natural gas energy efficiency programs that target low-income households in the largest metropolitan areas in the country. ACEEE surveyed over 70 electric and natural gas utilities on their 2015 low-income program spending, energy savings, customer participation, and best practices.

This paper is a baseline assessment of electric and natural gas energy efficiency programs that target low-income households in the largest metropolitan areas in the country. ACEEE surveyed over 70 electric and natural gas utilities on their 2015 low-income program spending, energy savings, customer participation, and best practices.

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.

This comprehensive national guide provides a step-by-step process to apply the Resource Value Framework and allow jurisdictions to develop their own primary cost-effectiveness test -- the Resource Value Test. It provides guidance using lessons learned in state and local jurisdictions over 20 years.

This comprehensive national guide provides a step-by-step process to apply the Resource Value Framework and allow jurisdictions to develop their own primary cost-effectiveness test -- the Resource Value Test. It provides guidance using lessons learned in state and local jurisdictions over 20 years.

This document covers preliminary findings from research on installation practices for the residential retrofit HVAC market.

This report identifies the states that are showing policy and institutional leadership in EM&V (evaluation, measurement, and verification). It also includes case studies and discusses major challenges facing the EM&V field.

This report identifies states that are leaders in EM&V (evaluation, measurement, and verification) and gives examples of what they are doing. It covers three topics that have recently received attention in the industry: deemed savings and technical reference manuals (TRMs), common practice baselines (CPBs), and advanced metering-based measurement and verification (M&V 2.0). It includes case studies for each topic and conclude with a discussion of major challenges facing the EM&V field.

This guide supports the development, maintenance, and use of accurate and reliable Technical Reference Manuals (TRMs). TRMs provide information to estimate the energy and demand savings of end-use energy efficiency measures associated with utility customer-funded efficiency programs. This guide describes existing TRMs in the United States and provides recommendations for TRM best practices. It also offers related background information on energy efficiency; evaluation, measurement, and verification; and TRM basics.

Elevate Energy constructed a database of 143,000 Chicago multifamily buildings and segmented them based on age, size, and other traits in order to better understand the Chicago multifamily sector. The segmentation findings point to opportunities to improve ChicagoÕs energy efficiency programs. The size of the unsubsidized lower-cost multifamily market in Chicago, added benefits of improved health outcomes for low-income residents, and greater investment in disadvantaged neighborhoods strengthen the case for prioritizing multifamily market for energy efficiency. The report is organized into three parts. The first part describes the datasets used to build a database of ChicagoÕs multifamily buildings. The second reviews key findings from the analysis. The third section provides recommended improvements to efficiency programs based on the segmentation.

This paper provides background information and frames key discussion points related to advanced measurement and verification (M&V). The paper identifies the benefits, methods, and requirements of advanced M&V and outlines key technical issues for applying these methods. It presents an overview of the distinguishing elements of M&V 2.0 tools.

This report presents findings from an impact evaluation of the Universal Audit Tool (UAT). UAT programs provide residential customers with advice on energy efficiency, insight into areas of high energy use, and tips and suggestions for saving both energy and money based on responses to an online survey regarding household appliances, occupancy, and other dwelling characteristics.

This report discusses how information technologies (IT) and communication networks are enabling new ways of tracking and analyzing the benefits of saving energy. Automated data collection and processing, enabled by inexpensive sensors, WiFi networks, and cloud computing, are reducing the time and expense required to determine the value of nonenergy benefits. This report explores new techniques for data gathering and analysis, what they could mean for energy efficiency programs, and how they might impact state and utility policies.

The Midwest is home to a significant stock of multifamily buildings that represent a huge energy savings opportunity. Multifamily housing makes up 11 to 22% of the housing stock in Midwest states. The majority of multifamily housing is renter-occupied, and a large proportion of those renters are low income customers for whom the cost of high utility bills is the most burdensome. This report examines the mixture of multifamily energy efficiency programs in four states Ð Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota and Iowa Ð since 2010. The analysis looks at investment, energy savings and program models offered in each state. These states are not the only states working on multifamily energy efficiency in the Midwest, but they provide a good contrast in terms of energy efficiency policies and performance, as well as having sufficient available data for the analysis.

This report examines how State Energy Offices and state-level partners are supporting growth and uptake of Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) financing around the country. The report offers examples, insights, and strategies for State Energy Offices, green banks, state financing agencies, and other public and private entities to catalyze, accelerate, organize, and expand C-PACE markets.

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 document summarizes the findings of a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory analysis on how whole-building data aggregation thresholds statistically affect customer privacy.

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.

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

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.

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 document provides guidance on how policymakers, utilities, and regulators should approach whole-building data access to maintain the confidentiality of utility customers.

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 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.

This paper presents the findings of market research performed to determine the potential options for packaged advanced measurement and verification (M&V 2.0) type software tools capable of evaluating residential energy efficiency programs. It describes the structure of the evaluation, including the process of establishing program goals, identifying a testbed energy efficiency program, and selecting a vendor. Last, the paper highlights lessons learned along the way.

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.

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.

The Regional Roundup of Energy Efficiency Policy is intended to give policymakers, regulators, efficiency proponents, program administrators and other stakeholders a comparative view of the progress of energy efficiency policies and programs across the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic region. Along with state-level highlights, the report examines regional trends and shared challenges in harnessing the potential of energy efficiency to meet today’s pressing energy and environmental challenges.

This NEEP repository contains resources organized alphabetically by state in the Northeast and includes direct links to state Technical Reference Manuals and a list of known studies, reports, and evaluations as far back as 2004.

This report looks into residential lighting savings assumptions found in Technical Reference Manuals (TRMs) throughout the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions to understand what values were being used for key metrics such as hours of use, delta watt, and measure life.  It provides the opportunity to view completed Standardized Methods Forms to compare evaluation methodology and results.

This guide for states highlights energy efficiency as a least-cost strategy to meet air pollution reduction and other policy objectives, including energy affordability and reliability. It presents established policy and program “pathways” to advance demand-side energy efficiency.

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.

The Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance (SEEA) has prepared this assessment of the Southeast’s multifamily sector to better understand the current stock of multifamily units; regional and state multifamily construction trends; utility multifamily energy efficiency programs; and state and local policies and programs focused on the multifamily sector.

Improving energy efficiency can make energy more affordable, transform unhealthy buildings into comfortable homes, and create thousands of jobs. While there are opportunities across the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors, some of the greatest need and most profound gains can be made in low- and moderate-income housing. This report outlines why focusing on energy efficiency programs to serve North Carolinians of modest means can return benefits to everyone across the state, and discusses many of the steps that can be taken to increase the adoption of energy efficiency in North Carolina.

This study calculates the potential energy savings from the implementation of energy efficiency measures in MissouriÕs affordable multifamily sector. This research identifies the maximum achievable potential savings and benefits that can be captured over the 20-year period from 2015-2034 through the deployment of affordable multifamily energy efficiency programs. The study found that there is significant as yet untapped energy savings potential in MissouriÕs affordable multifamily housing.

NEEP has been tracking the residential lighting market for several years and has provided analysis in many reports. As the transformation of this complex market gains traction, we find the conversation and need for new information narrowing to one key topic: LEDs. While CFLs continue to play a role in residences and amongst Northeast and Mid-Atlantic program administrators, the LED has transitioned into the starring role of the residential lighting show.

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 Guide is designed to help state and local policymakers to take full advantage of new policy developments by providing them with a comprehensive set of tools to support launching or accelerating residential energy efficiency programs. The Guide focuses on four categories of policies that have proven particularly effective in providing a framework within which residential energy efficiency programs can thrive: incentives and financing, making the value of energy efficiency visible in the real estate market, data access and standardization, and supporting utility system procurement of energy efficiency.

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 report presents an analysis of data for residential single-family projects reported by 37 organizations that were awarded federal financial assistance (cooperative agreements or grants) by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Neighborhood Program. The report characterizes the energy-efficiency measures installed for single-family residential projects and analyzes energy savings and savings prediction accuracy for measures installed in a subset of those projects.

This handbook provides both a strategic planning framework and standard methodologies to determine the energy and non-energy benefits of benchmarking and transparency (B&T) policies and programs that have recently begun to proliferate in jurisdictions across the United States. The intent of this handbook is to provide a simple “how-to-guide” with very clear steps and data requirements for the primary analysis methods recommended for use by local jurisdictions wishing or needing to assess the impacts of their B&T policies.

Real estate professionals are increasingly aware that today’s homebuyers consider heating and cooling costs, efficient appliances, and efficient lighting to be important factors in home purchase decisions. Residential energy efficiency and real estate stakeholders, however, agree that the home resale process frequently fails to account for the value of high-performance home features. If investments in energy efficiency were more accurately reflected in home resale prices, homeowners could have greater confidence that these investments would be recouped at resale, and they might make more investments in efficiency.

Energy efficiency collaboratives vary greatly and are typically designed for a specific jurisdiction, making them hard to compare side by side. This guide seeks to highlight a few common elements and draw conclusions on the overall effectiveness of specific characteristics of collaboratives. This guide defines and examines four different types of collaboratives in terms of their origin, scope, decision-making method, membership, duration, available resources, and how they interact with and influence their respective commissions.

This case study includes a baseline assessment of "green fields" that highlight the green and energy-efficient aspects of homes in the MLS and the market for high-performance homes (HPHs) in the District of Columbia. The report also sets the stage for the upcoming release of additional green fields in the Metropolitan Regional Information System (MRIS), the local MLS in the Washington metropolitan region.

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.

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.

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 factsheet highlights the benefits of increasing the energy efficiency of multifamily housing, which saves energy, improves residents' health and comfort. and maintains reasonable rents. This helps families, communities, and affordable building owners.

This Technical Reference Manual (TRM) documents common assumptions for approximately thirty prescriptive electric energy efficiency measures savings.

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.

This report documents the significant economic and energy savings potential from making multifamily affordable housing more energy-efficient. The study identifies the maximum achievable potential savings and benefits that can be captured over the 20-year period from 2015-2034 in the multifamily affordable housing sector. Based on the data gathered from a sample of states across the country, the report estimates that energy efficiency programs in multifamily affordable housing could cut electricity usage by as much as 32 percent and natural gas by 24 percent. The study includes specific findings for Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

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.

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.

Residential multi-family properties represent not only a significant share of the housing stock in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region, but a significant opportunity to capture energy efficiency savings through cost-effective retrofit measures. The nature of the multi-family housing stock Ð and, in particular, the small multi-family sector Ð creates a unique set of challenges. This overview page outlines the market barriers and challenges faced by small multi-family properties and offers recommendations for policymakers and other stakeholders to make the multi-family sector a key outreach sector target, both in terms of policies and program strategies.

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 study documents the market valuation associated with the predominant green and energy efficiency home certifications used in the Northwest. Regional markets with a track record of including green building and energy efficiency information in MLS databases have lacked a recent, thorough, locally relevant analysis of the potential value of “higher performing” homes in current market conditions. Real property appraisers require a reliable, localized, granular analysis they can use in their home valuation calculations. The analysis contained in this report addresses this identified market need.

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.

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 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 fact sheet outlines the opportunities and challenges to be considered in expanding energy efficiency in the affordable multifamily housing sector. Making affordable rental housing more energy efficient is a cost-effective way to reduce energy consumption, maintain housing affordability, create healthier and more comfortable living environments for moderate- and low income families, and reduce pollution.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The report makes the case for establishment of common data collection practices for energy efficiency lending. The report reviews existing practices for the collection of four categories of data from energy efficiency financing programs: (1) customer data; (2) financial product and performance data; (3) facility-level data; and (4) energy efficiency project data. The report then identifies high-priority needs, characterizes potential uses for finance program data, and identifies use cases that describe how stakeholders use data for key objectives and actions.

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.

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.

Residential multifamily properties represent not only a significant share of the housing stock in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region, but a significant opportunity to capture energy efficiency savings through cost-effective retrofit measures. The nature of the multifamily housing stock Ð and, in particular, the small multifamily sector Ð creates a unique set of challenges that have until now largely stymied the retrofit market. Yet some successful models for reaching the small multifamily sector have begun to emerge. This paper is meant to inform energy efficiency stakeholders and policymakers about best practices gleaned from examining existing programs and policies addressing energy efficiency in the small multifamily housing market; to identify continuing gaps in the ability to penetrate that market to an even greater extent; and to present recommendations for programs and policies that may hold the promise of additional energy savings.

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.

Multifamily affordable housing is full of untapped energy efficiency potential. This overview provides context and best practices for creating effective programs to capture this potential. With a better understanding of these considerations, stakeholders can start to build a more robust network of leaders and practitioners in affordable multifamily housing and realize the vast environmental, economic, and social potential of delivering energy efficiency for all.

Multifamily housing retrofits provide a rich opportunity to reap energy efficiency (EE) savings. Despite this opportunity, the multifamily market has not captured investment needed to realize the energy savings, and the affordable housing sector faces additional investment barriers. This paper makes the case for the implementation of energy retrofits in affordable multifamily buildings by presenting the non-energy benefits (NEBs) associated with such upgrades.

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.

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 report presents the cost of saving energy through efficiency programs funded by utility customers in the period 2009-2011 at the national and regional level for all sectors and the most prevalent program types.

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.

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 policy brief presents a program typology and standardized data metrics for assessing energy efficiency program characteristics, costs, and impacts. Based on a review of nationwide regulatory filings, the research serves as part of an effort to analyze the cost per unit of savings for utility customer-funded energy efficiency programs. The paper discusses the program categories and definitions, which are based primarily on review of several years of annual energy efficiency reports from 108 program administrators in 31 states for approximately 1,900 unique programs.