This article discusses the importance and value of evaluating energy efficiency financing programs.

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.

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 report details findings from the evaluation of the Colorado energy efficiency financing program.

This tool lets non-experts evaluate county-level emissions displaced at electric power plants by energy efficiency and renewable energy policies and programs.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on Better Buildings Residential Network members reporting upgrades and benefits.

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 study involved on-site visits to 180 single-family homes across Connecticut. The team assessed compliance with the weatherization standard using both the prescriptive and performance paths and made recommendations to improve program quality.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on energy modeling in multifamily homes.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on the advantages and challenges of data tracking systems.

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.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on evaluating and demonstrating the cost-effectiveness of energy upgrades to programs.

This worksheet can help you organize your ideas and methods for creating an effective evaluation plan.

This webcast is part of a three-part series on communications strategies and methods. It focuses on how communities can effectively showcase the benefits and successes of a clean energy initiative to ensure additional funding opportunities, continued engagement, and sustained behavior change.

This presentation summarizes the non-energy benefits of energy efficiency, and how they can be used to drive uptake of energy efficiency measures. State examples are included.

This report was prepared to provide an overview and analysis of results and lessons learned under Efficiency Vermont’s program from 2011-2013.  The aim was to explore the factors that motivate customers to initiate and complete retrofit projects, how have these factors influenced the growth and development of the program, and opportunities to update and evolve the program.

This summary report provides scientific results, lessons learned, and recommendations for driving energy efficiency in existing buildings on an urban scale. It includes program marketing lesson learned, such as: personal outreach and call to action events are critical marketing opportunities.

This webinar is the first (in a series of six) hosted by USDA Rural Utility Service (RUS) and focusing on the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Loan Program (EECLP). This webinar provides an overview of the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Loan Program. It covers the requirements and benefits of the program and also discusses steps you can take to evaluate the cost effectiveness of energy program options.

This webinar is the second (in a series of six) hosted by USDA Rural Utility Service (RUS) and focusing on the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Loan Program (EECLP). This webinar covers the key concepts of Evaluation, Monitoring & Verification (EM&V), gives an overview of the full process, from estimating savings before programs are implemented to measuring and verifying the savings at the end. The webinar also covers EM&V framework, evaluation plans, technical reference manuals and measurement and verification studies.

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.

This webcast provides an introduction to cost-effectiveness testing for energy efficiency programs. It also covers key drivers in the cost-effectiveness results and cost-effectiveness tools developed for the U.S. Department of Energy.

This webcast provides an introduction to cost-effectiveness testing for energy efficiency programs, key drivers in the cost-effectiveness results, and cost effectiveness tool developed for the U.S. Department of Energy.

This webcast discusses evaluation of costs for energy efficiency measures.

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.

A calculator that converts greenhouse gas emissions into everyday equivalencies. It can be used to help clearly communicate information about energy savings initiatives aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

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.

This report documents findings and recommendations from an impact evaluation of the California Energy Commission’s California Comprehensive Residential Retrofit program, a statewide energy upgrade program funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The program funded local and regional subrecipients to develop and test initiatives aimed at transforming the residential energy upgrade market and building an infrastructure for whole-building energy upgrades. These local and regional governments collaborated with California’s major utilities to jointly conduct the statewide Energy Upgrade California program.

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.

This webcast discusses the savings and cost-effectiveness of home energy reports programs.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on choosing and developing program evaluation.

The Model EM&V Methods Standardized Reporting Forms were prepared by the Regional Evaluation, Measurement and Verification Forum (‘the Forum’).  The Forum embarked to create a model template that supports greater transparency of program administrator/state EM&V practices used to calculate EE savings via a straightforward, standardized EM&V methods ‘check list.’  This type of document is intended to help energy and environmental policy and market players readily understand and compare EM&V approaches used to estimate reported EE program savings to inform their specific needs. 

This evaluation plan for the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission includes a market assessment framework which includes indicators of progress toward market transformation; evaluation recommendations for the 2015-2016 program implementation period; and a 6-year evaluation plan for each program or customer sector.

This evaluation and research plan sets out a proposed process for establishing and executing a detailed evaluation and research plan for New Jersey's Clean Energy Program.

This memo provides a review of the New Jersey Comfort Partners Energy Saving Protocols, recommends changes to the calculations and additional calculation protocols for measures not included, and calculates engineering estimates for those proposed energy savings formulas.

The purpose of this report, prepared by sustainability consulting firm iSpring, is to provide the results of the EnergyWorks program to the contractors and auditors who participated, along with information on lessons learned over the course of the program that might prove helpful in their future work.

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.

Data release form that allows the Connecticut Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority (CEFIA) to obtain customer utility account and actual energy usage data, energy costs, underwriting and loan repayment records, and data on energy savings measures installed.

The Standard Energy Efficiency Data (SEED)™ Platform is a software application that helps organizations easily manage data on the energy performance of large groups of buildings. Users can combine data from multiple sources, clean and validate it, and share the information with others. The software application provides an easy, flexible, and cost-effective method to improve the quality and availability of data to help demonstrate the economic and environmental benefits of energy efficiency, to implement programs, and to target investment activity.

Quick summaries of strategies various programs have used to improve the efficiency of delivering efficiency.

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 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 summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how loan performance data is tracked and analyzed, and what the data shows.

This presentation explains the importance of data collection and analysis for residential energy efficiency programs, common challenges related to data collection, and best practices for effective data collection and use.

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.

The Best Practices Self-Benchmarking Tool can be used to identify in your own programs their strengths, areas of improvement needed, and strategies for improving them, based on the results of the Best Practices Study.

This report presents the impact evaluation conducted of the 13 programs in the Southeast Consortium Better Buildings Neighborhood Program (BBNP).

This report presents the phase 1 process evaluation conducted of the 13 programs in the Southeast Consortium Better Buildings Neighborhood Program (BBNP).

This report presents the phase 2 process evaluation conducted of the 13 programs in the Southeast Consortium Better Buildings Neighborhood Program (BBNP).

This tool, developed in Excel, supports the development and analysis of residential energy efficiency programs using standard cost-effectiveness analysis methods. Policy makers, utilities, energy efficiency program managers, architects and engineers may find the tool useful for supporting and scaling up residential energy efficiency programs. The tool estimates cost-effectiveness, using industry standard approaches, of both deep-home energy efficiency retrofits and individual measures. The user can build up a program based on up to 5 different ‘project types’ (or measures implemented) and identify the number of homes to be targeted for retrofits over the program cycle. The tool reports cost-effectiveness metrics of the program, including program budgets, and allows the user to conduct sensitivity analysis against key inputs.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on energy benchmarking and building disclosure policies.

This report provides an independent analysis of the job creation impact of DOE's investment in energy efficiency programs, from 2010 to 2013. The analysis calculates the job creation results that would have occurred in the Southeast, based on the prevailing economic conditions from 2010 to 2013, had DOE invested in sectors other than energy efficiency.

This report demonstrates the results achieved to date by the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance. It highlights the experiences of Consortium programs, their successes driving further investments in energy efficiency improvements, and the challenges that hindered their progress. It also details the infrastructure, resources, and opportunities that support the deployment of energy efficiency programming, and the approaches that the Consortium has found best suited to the region.

This report provides an independent analysis of the economic performance of SEEA's 13-city, U.S. Department of Energy-funded energy efficiency upgrade consortium from 2010 to 2013. It estimates the net impacts of SEEA's energy efficiency programs on the economy of the southeast region as a whole, and on the economies of the states with participating programs.

This study examines actual loan performance data obtained from CoreLogic, the lending industry’s leading source of such data. To assess whether residential energy efficiency is associated with lower default and prepayment risks, a national sample of about 71,000 ENERGY STAR and non-ENERGY STAR-rated single-family home mortgages was carefully constructed, accounting for loan, household, and neighborhood characteristics. The study finds that default risks are on average 32 percent lower in energy-efficient homes, controlling for other loan determinants.

This study looks at evidence of capitalization of energy efficiency features in home prices using data from real estate multiple listing services (MLS) in three metropolitan areas: the Research Triangle region of North Carolina; Austin, Texas; and Portland, Oregon. These home listings include information on Energy Star certification and, in Portland and Austin, local green certifications. Our results suggest that Energy Star certification increases the sales prices of homes built between 1995 and 2006 but has no statistically significant effect on sales prices for newer homes.

This report presents the results of ACEEE's third national review or utility-funded energy efficiency programs, completed in 2013. The report identifies and profiles 63 leading programs that span the wide array of program types offered to utility customers, and highlights key trends and observations that emerged from reviewing these programs.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on gathering and communicating loan performance data.

The downloadable Self-Scoring Tool gives you the ability to score the energy efficiency efforts of your community and compare it against your peers. By answering a series of questions, you will obtain a numerical score indicative of your community’s progress toward enacting and implementing sound energy programs and policies.

The document provides best practices and guidance for conducting the energy analysis required for multifamily (MF) building energy improvement projects funded by the various programs of the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development. The intended audience includes energy auditors, building owners and operators, contractors, designers, architects, engineers, and energy efficiency consultants and program staff.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how to create and track program benchmarks.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on the benefits and challenges of program automation.

The purpose of this position paper is to introduce a new framework efficiency screening designed to address know problems with cost-effectiveness tests.

This presentation includes a brief Introduction to Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships (NEEP) and the Regional Evaluation, Measurement and Verification Forum (EM&V Forum), Regional Energy Efficiency Database (REED) development and content, and how to access the REED reports and underlying data.

This interim evaluation report examines the design, delivery, and market effects of each of the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance's (SEEA) thirteen sub-grantee programs and identifies opportunities to increase each program's success, and quantifies and verifies the energy savings achieved through the programs' funded home energy improvements and the cost-effectiveness of those savings.

The Small Town Energy Program (STEP) toolkit gives a complete overview of STEP from planning to implementation. It also includes access to a wide variety of materials developed by the program, including: local asset materials, partner materials, personnel materials, program administrative materials, outreach materials, and surveys. STEP has posted these toolkit documents with the hope that it will assist other small towns and communities in building and running more energy efficiency programs.

This webcast provides approaches for projecting, analyzing and representing end-use energy efficiency potential and its impacts on state, regional and national energy use.

STEP was developed with a mission to "create a model community energy transformation program that serves as a roadmap for other small towns across the U.S." This final technical report summarizes the program's comprehensive energy evaluations for homes.

The State and Local Energy Efficiency Action Network (SEE Action) Evaluation, Measurement, and Verification (EM&V) Resource Portal serves as an EM&V resource one-stop shop for energy efficiency program administrators and project managers. The resources focus on tools and approaches that can be applied nationwide, address EM&V consistency, and are recognized by the industry.

This report provides a set of model protocols for determining energy and demand savings that result from specific energy efficiency measures or programs. The methods described are among the most commonly used approaches in the energy efficiency industry for certain measures or programs; they draw from the existing body of research and best practices for energy efficiency evaluation, measurement, and verification (EM&V).

This peer exchange call summary focused on the challenges, advantages and disadvantages of using a home scoring system.

The ultimate objective of the protocol is to develop a system that can be used to guide the production of readily usable dataset that can leverage project data from future meter-based measurement and evaluation studies, or metering studies to develop end-use load shapes. The protocol includes a "NEEP Residential Data Collection Protocol Report" template.

This report contains guidance on issues and policy options related to providing access to customer energy use information that can be used to support and enhance the provision of energy efficiency services while protecting customer privacy.

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 document provides sample policy language based on a synthesis of existing state and local policies, and discussion on key provisions, for the design of a commercial benchmarking and disclosure policy.

This report provides a comprehensive review of a wide range of problems and inconsistencies in current cost-effectiveness test practices, and recommends a range of best practices to address them.

This peer exchange call summary focused on how to calculate and communicate program activities and results.

Presentation describing how Conservation Services Group uses data to monitor market transformation and for internal QA/QC purposes.

In this video interview segment, Tom Bregman of Energize New York, Energy Smart discusses how to overcoming Difficulties Collecting Non-Utility Fuel Data (e.g., fuel oil, propane).

This report provides results, lessons learned and recommendations for driving energy efficiency in existing building on an urban scale based on the second year of the Energize Phoenix energy efficiency program.

This report provides information on how access to energy use data can help local governments create policies for benchmarking and disclosing building energy performance for public and private sector buildings.

This report provides information on how supporting access to building benchmarking data can help utilities increase efficiency and drive down energy demand.