The Guide to Action provides in-depth information about over a dozen policies and programs that states are using to meet their energy, environmental, and economic objectives with energy efficiency, renewable energy, and combined heat and power. Each policy description is based on states’ experiences in designing and implementing policies, as documented in existing literature and shared through peer-exchange opportunities provided to states by EPA’s State Climate and Energy Program.

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 report presents results from an analysis of asthma-related health benefits of health and home performance interventions using data collected from 49 households in Northwestern Washington State from 2006 to 2013.

Cool Choices layered an experiment atop four engagement games where they used game mechanics to identify high energy users and encourage those high energy users (along with other game participants) to participate in Focus on Energy residential programs. This research effort, called "Find and Flip," explored whether a gamification strategy could identify high energy users and then drive them to Focus on Energy programs.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on approaches to generate demand for energy efficiency upgrades at multifamily buildings.

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 summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on the benefits and challenges of local programs connecting to national campaigns.

This guide was developed for local climate and clean energy (i.e., energy efficiency, renewable energy, and combined heat and power) program implementers to help create or transition to program designs that are viable over the long term. The guide draws on the experience and examples of EPA’s Climate Showcase Communities as they developed innovative models for programs that could be financially viable over the long term and replicated in other communities.

This report lays the groundwork for a dialogue to explore regulatory and policy mechanisms for ensuring that efficiency financing initiatives provide value for society and protection for consumers. Through case studies of Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, California, and Maryland, it explores emerging issues that jurisdictions will need to tackle when considering an increased reliance on financing.

This guide identifies 12 best practices for policymakers, regulators, and program administrators to help building owners invest to increase the energy efficiency of multifamily affordable housing.

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.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on approaches to improve and sustain quality customer service for residential energy efficiency work.

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.

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.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how pet-based marketing can promote residential energy efficiency.

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.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how energy efficiency initiatives relate to real estate marketing.

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 infographic illustrates program accomplishments between 2011 and 2014.

In this video interview segment, Yvonne Kraus of Conservation Services Group describes how the program aligned its goal of increasing energy efficiency with the community's goal to avoid building a new electrical substation.

This report analyzes and develops estimates of non-energy impacts that could be included in cost effectiveness analyses for the EmPOWER Maryland energy efficiency programs. Four non-energy benefits are included in this analysis: air emissions, comfort, commercial operations and maintenance (O&M), and utility bill arrearages. In all four cases, a recommended value and methods for including them in future EMPOWER costs effectiveness analyses are provided.

This study assesses the benefits of adding health and home performance to a community health worker education program on asthma control in King County, Washington, from October 2009 to September 2010. The study compared group homes receiving community health worker education on health and home performance benefits and interventions with historical comparison group homes receiving only education on asthma control. Over the study period, the percentage of study group children with not-well-controlled or very poorly controlled asthma decreased more than the comparison group.

In this video interview segment, Yvonne Kraus of Conservation Services Group describes how energy advisors were an important strategy for building trust with customers in the community.

This marketing plan describes a social mobilization approach that leverages social networking, including social media, and word-of-mouth marketing to raise awareness and drive customers to program services. It provides strategies and tactics to target audiences most likely to participate, building on market research and audience segmentation to develop a message platform specifically designed to address their key motivating factors and barriers.

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

There are more than 17 million multifamily households nationwide, yet they remain a significant and mostly untapped opportunity for energy efficiency gains. Many cities and states that have embraced energy retrofitting as a job creator and boon to both the environment and economy have yet to address potential savings in multifamily properties, primarily because of obstacles not faced by single family and commercial properties. This paper discusses two barriers -- a lack of information and financing -- that stand in the way of multifamily energy retrofits.

This report provides an overview of the current state of on-bill programs and provides actionable insights on key program design considerations for on-bill lending programs.

Table summarizing financing options for Colorado residents in EnergySmart Colorado territory.

This case study discusses Denver Energy Challenge's adjustment from focusing on door-to-door outreach to an energy advisor model that allowed customers to receive one on one support throughout the home energy upgrade process.

Summary of minimum standards and requirements for the Massachusetts HEAT Loan program.

The Multi-State Residential Retrofit Project is a residential energy-efficiency pilot program, funded by a competitive U.S. State Energy Program (SEP) award through the U.S. Department of Energy. The Multi-State Project operates in four states: Alabama, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Washington. During the course of this three-year process evaluation, Cadmus worked closely with NASEO and the four states to collect information about the programs from many perspectives, including: State Energy Office staff, program implementers, homeowners, auditors/contractors, real estate professionals, appraisers, lenders, and utility staff. This report discusses: the project’s context; its goals; the evaluation approach and methods; cross-cutting evaluation results; and results specific to each of the four states.

This report is a comprehensive research study of energy efficiency in Northwest residential buildings. It includes a metering study, a single-family report, a manufactured homes report, and a multi-family report. In addition, it includes state-by-state energy use reports, as well as end-use consumption data.

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

This report examines the opportunity for accelerating Fort Collins’ energy and climate goals to reflect the community’s values, and capture economic, social, and environmental benefits.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on challenges and strategies related to split incentives for tenants and landlords.

Overview of lessons learned from EnergySmart Colorado's energy advisor model.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on new and updated revenue strategies.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on using social media for long-term branding and marketing.

Developed as part of the Residential Building Stock Assessment (RBSA), this report provides overall housing utility and energy statistics for Washington, and details the type and efficiency of various components such as windows, insulation, appliances and type of heating fuel used in homes with each region of the state.

This peer exchange call summary focused on using approved contractor lists and matching customers with contractors based on processes/criteria.

This presentation describes behavior-based energy efficiency programs and the results of the implementation of pilots from the Snohomish County PUD, Puget Sound Energy, and Clark Public Utilities. These program design features included home energy reports, web portals, and social media platforms.

Flier that summarizes energy efficiency financing offered by Xcel Energy's financing partners.

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 tracking and using data to support revenue streams.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on trends in contractor conversion rates.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on working with the real estate sector to promote and drive demand for energy efficiency.

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

This webcast reviews the SEE Action report that describes how utility planning processes that allow demand-side resources to compete with supply-side resources can promote cost-effective energy efficiency.

This peer exchange call summary focused on leveraging home inspectors and others in the real estate transaction processes.

RePower helped consumers access aggregated information about financing and rebates by compiling a customer-friendly guide to all utility and non-utility incentives in its service area.

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 study focused on homeowner decision-making in response to home energy assessments, combined with the quality of the recommendations, the home energy assessment, and home energy labels. This report analyzes what assessments provide and what homeowners seem to want. It presents the results of a study of an existing home energy audit program pilot offered by Seattle City Light. From mid-2010 to late 2011, approximately 1,350 home energy assessments were completed in Seattle as part of Seattle City Light's program.

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

Form used by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission for consent to disclose utility customer data.

This peer exchange call summary focused on the relationship between contract pricing and customers.

This peer exchange call summary focused on the challenges, benefits, quality assurance methods and incorporation of do-it-yourself projects into programs.

This peer exchange call summary focused on best practices, entry points, strategies and challenges of program integration and participation in utility planning efforts.

This report provides information on how energy use data access can help state governments lead by example through benchmarking and disclosing results and implement benchmarking policies for the private sector.

This progress report provides community members and others interested in EnergySmart with a clear snapshot of its progress. The report also provides a timeline of energy efficiency policies and programs in Boulder County.

This video describes how RePower benefited from coordinating with contractors from the very beginning.

This peer exchange call summary focused on how to engage, grow and identify challenges of small contractor businesses.

Many states have adopted policies intended to overcome the barriers that limit the more efficient use of electricity. Yet because such efforts have not addressed the lack of consumer information and motivation to improve efficiency, many opportunities for energy efficiency remain untapped. To help address that problem, states, utilities, and other energy efficiency service providers have begun to develop new approaches to informing and motivating customers based on behavioral economics and psychology research. This report describes three broad strategies that states can use to engage consumers' participation in energy efficiency programs: provide direct consumer information and feedback on energy use, influence social norms; and match messages and messengers to target audiences. Recommendations for actions that governors can take within the context of each of those three strategies are provided.

This toolkit provides information about including and using relevant green data fields in the MLS. This information can help buyers quickly find green homes; make it easy to promote the special features of a green home; and support comparisons when it is time to appraise a green home.

This paper explores ways in which program administrators are using social norms to spur behavior change and, as a result, curb energy use. In recent years, home energy reports (HER) programs have applied the concept of social norms to the energy efficiency context. These feedback programs inform customers of how their energy consumption compares to their neighbors' and provide other information about their usage, with the goal of enticing customers to change their energy use behavior to improve their relative neighborhood ranking.

This peer exchange call summary focused on how to receive and evaluate feedback from customers 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 grant funding investments, program design and revenue streams in the post-grant period.

In this video interview segment, Yvonne Kraus of Conservation Services Group in Bainbridge Island, Washington,  discusses why the RePower program created multiple branding and messaging themes.

Pacific Power contracted with The Cadmus Group, Inc., to conduct impact and process evaluations of its Washington low-income weatherization program for the program period extending from March 2009 through February 2011. The impact evaluation assessed energy savings and cost-effectiveness associated with the program, and in doing so quantified select non-energy benefits. The process evaluation assessed program delivery and efficacy, potential bottlenecks, opportunities for improvements, and participants’ experiences and satisfaction with the program.

In this video interview segment, Yvonne Kraus of Conservation Services Group describes how program and utility partnerships can co-benefit each other.

Homeowner data collection survey created by RePower.

Evaluation reports from the Seattle Community Power Works program. The city of Seattle worked to encourage efficiency upgrades for single-family and multi-family residences, small businesses, hospitals, and large commercial and municipal buildings.

This mid-program evaluation includes extensive analysis of program sectors, including results of surveys of participants, and summarizes lessons learned to date.

This peer exchange call summary focused on the challenges and strategies for marketing commercial financial products and attracting financial institutions.

This peer exchange call summary focused on strategies and challenges of working with rental property owners and tenants on multifamily upgrades.

This on-demand webinar discusses what residential customers in Wisconsin, the Midwest, and the nation have to say about energy topics.  Learn about the Energy Center of Wisconsin's (now Seventhwave's) research on consumer perceptions and actions concerning their energy use at home based on the 2011 Midwest Energy Survey.

In this video interview segment, Will Ranes of RePower Kitsap discusses the importance of understanding your market, including being able to speak the language of utilities and other key players.

EnergySmart Colorado uses surveys and a customer database to get feedback from homeowners that helps fine-tune program services and operations.