The Better Buildings Financing Navigator is a web-based tool designed to help private and public sector organizations discover financing solutions for energy efficiency projects that meet their unique needs. Through the Financing Navigator, multi-family building owners, facility and energy managers, and other decision-makers can connect with financiers, including banks and financial institutions, to pursue energy-saving measures.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Better Buildings Residential Program released version 2.0 of a user-friendly tool for estimating the cost-effectiveness of a residential energy efficiency program based on program administrator inputs. Cost-effectiveness analysis compares the benefits (i.e., outputs or outcomes) associated with a program or a measure with the costs (i.e., resources expended) to produce them. Program cost-effectiveness is commonly used by public utility commissions to make decisions about funding programs or program approaches. Program designers, policy makers, utilities, architects, and engineers can use this tool to estimate the impact of different program changes on the cost-effectiveness of a program.

This toolkit supplies evaluators doing energy efficiency evaluations in California with the latest versions of the key documents, rulings, and tools, that define, inform or control their evaluation efforts.

This guide provides a series of questions that will help to develop a baseline assessment in energy efficiency, renewables, or other services programs.

The Better Building Clean Energy for Low Income Communities Accelerator (CELICA) offers a list of federal funding and financing resources and technical assistance programs for low-to-moderate income community projects. It is a worksheet for program managers to map out relevant resources for their planning or program needs.

This toolkit describes how to strengthen residential energy efficiency program outreach and marketing efforts through data-driven, tailored efforts to change behaviors. One of the greatest challenges facing the residential energy efficiency market is motivating people to take steps to save energy. This toolkit provides guidance, resources, and examples for applying community-based social marketing (CBSM) to increase the number of homes that are energy efficient.

This conversion rate spreadsheet was developed to assist Home Performance with ENERGY STAR (HPwES) participating contractors.

This marketing plan template was developed to assist Home Performance with ENERGY STAR (HPwES) participating contractors develop their marketing plans.

This marketing tactics spreadsheet was developed to assist Home Performance with ENERGY STAR (HPwES) participating contractors.

A comprehensive source of data on the environmental characteristics of almost all electric power generated in the United States.

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

The catalog is a compilation of state and local energy efficiency potential studies to serve as a resource for energy planners and as a baseline for future analyses.

This tool from Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) provides homeowners with a list of contractors, based on their location, to schedule an energy assessment or in-home consultation.  It also provides a direct link to state license information.

This tool provides Southern California Edison (SCE) and Southern California Gas (SoCalGas) customers with a list of Energy Upgrade California participating contractors, home performance skills, license information, and the languages spoken by the contractors.

This tool from Focus on Energy connects Wisconsin residents and businesses with local home performance contractors that provide various energy efficiency services and offers a list of each contractor's skills.

Home Energy Score is an online tool used by assessors to rate a home’s energy efficiency on a scale of 1 to 10, with a score of 10 indicating that the home has excellent energy performance and a score of 1 indicating that the home needs extensive energy improvements. Once a home is scored, homeowners receive recommendations on how to improve their score.

This tool helps customers in New York State find Home Performance with ENERGY STAR participating contractors based on their location.

Home performance extensible markup language (HPXML) is a national Building Performance Institute Data Dictionary and Standard Transfer Protocol created to reduce transactional costs associated with exchanging information between market actors. This website provides resources to help stakeholders implement HPXML and stay updated on its development.

This toolkit is a comprehensive guide to utility benchmarking for the multifamily sector. Benchmarking 101 describes the benefits of tracking utility data and explains how to begin the process. Utility Benchmarking Step-by-Step outlines a six-step approach to utility benchmarking. Policies and Programs summarizes utility benchmarking requirements for HUD programs, opportunities for financial assistance, and HUD programs that support green retrofits.

The Regional Evaluation, Measurement and Verification Forum (EM&V Forum) works to support use and transparency of current best practices in evaluation, measurement, verification, and reporting of energy and demand savings, costs, avoided emissions and other impacts of energy efficiency, while also advancing the development of strategies and tools to meet evolving policy needs for efficiency.

The ResStock analysis tool is designed to help states, municipalities, utilities, and manufacturers identify which home improvements save the most energy and money.

SWEPCO's Authorization to Release Information Form is used to release a customer's historical electric usage to a gridSMART Network Contractor.

The Energy Data Accelerator Toolkit is a collection of resources featured in the Better Buildings Solution Center that will enable other utilities and communities to learn and benefit from the work of the Accelerator. It describes the best practices that enabled cities, utilities, and other stakeholders to overcome whole-building data access barriers.

This toolkit was designed to help residential energy efficiency program managers identify resources and opportunities to help contractors, staff, and volunteers enhance their understanding of building science; sales and marketing; program offerings; and business development.

The Building Energy Data Exchange Specification (BEDES, pronounced "beads" or /bi:ds/) is designed to support analysis of the measured energy performance of commercial, multifamily, and residential buildings, by providing a common data format, definitions, and an exchange protocol for building characteristics, efficiency measures, and energy use.

The Building Performance Database (BPD) is the nation's largest dataset of information about the energy-related characteristics of commercial and residential buildings. The BPD combines, cleanses and anonymizes data collected by Federal, State and local governments, utilities, energy efficiency programs, building owners and private companies, and makes it available to the public. The web site allows users to explore the data across real estate sectors and regions, and compare various physical and operational characteristics to gain a better understanding of market conditions and trends in energy performance.

The energy efficiency reporting tool for public power utilities is an Excel-based template is designed to produce consistent, useful metrics on program investments and performance for small to medium-sized administrators of public power efficiency programs.

This online tool was designed to help Americans save money and energy by improving the energy efficiency of their homes through recommended, customized, and prioritized home improvement projects. The tool guides homeowners through a do-it-yourself energy assessment to create an ENERGY STAR home profile. Based on the newly created profile, the tool provides customized, prioritized recommendations for improvements. From these recommendations, users can create their own to-do lists of projects and update their home profiles over time as they make improvements. The home profiles can also be printed and used as a marketing advantage when homeowners sell their homes.

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

National Housing & Rehabilitation Association has collected a number of energy efficiency factsheets and resources on their Preservation Through Energy Efficiency Initiative Library.

This resource, provided by DOE, presents energy market information to help state and local governments plan and implement clean energy projects. The resource also includes a local energy toolbox that provides a cataloged, customizable list of actions to help local communities make strategic energy decisions.

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

This advisory addresses the most prominent appraisal issues associated with residential properties exhibiting green features and uses the terms "green" and "high performance" loosely. The structure of this document generally follows the real estate appraisal process and workflow.

The Contractor Engagement & Workforce Development Implementation Plan Template will help you develop a strategy for planning, operating, and evaluating your workforce activities.

The Evaluation & Data Collection Implementation Plan Template will help you develop a strategy for planning, operating, and evaluating your data collection and evaluation activities.

The Financing Implementation Plan Template will help you develop a strategy for planning, operating, and evaluating your financing activities.

The Market Position & Business Model Implementation Plan Template will help you develop a strategy for planning, operating, and evaluating your business planning activities.

The Marketing & Outreach Implementation Plan Template will help you develop a strategy for planning, operating, and evaluating your marketing and outreach activities.

The Program Design & Customer Experience Implementation Plan Template will help you develop a strategy for planning, operating, and evaluating your program design activities.

The Better Building Residential Program Implementation Plan Template will help you develop a strategy for planning, operating, and evaluating a successful residential energy efficiency program. The template includes sections for all six program components (i.e., Market Position & Business Model, Program Design & Customer Experience, Evaluation & Data Collection, Marketing & Outreach, Financing, and Contractor Engagement & Workforce Development).

The Better Building Residential Program Implementation Plan Template will help you develop a strategy for planning, operating, and evaluating a successful residential energy efficiency program. The template includes sections for all six program components (i.e., Market Position & Business Model, Program Design & Customer Experience, Evaluation & Data Collection, Marketing & Outreach, Financing, and Contractor Engagement & Workforce Development).

The Better Buildings Residential Network Designing Incentives Toolkit can help residential energy efficiency programs design incentives that motivate potential customers to act by lowering the risk, decreasing the cost, or offering additional benefits with home energy upgrades. This toolkit provides easy access to various case studies, presentations, and tips related to incentive design.

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.

The State Energy Efficient Appliance Rebate Program (SEEARP) reports database includes rebate reports (xls) and summary factsheets (pdf) from states and territories that participated in SEEARP. The successes and challenges of SEEARP provide valuable lessons for designing and running a consumer-focused appliance rebate program.

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

A one-page template that helps program administrators visualize activities and associated timelines for their marketing efforts.

List of building energy software packages, some of which are available for free or a small fee.

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

The Database for Incentives and Joint Marketing Exchange (DIME) is an online, searchable tool to help manufacturers and retailers identify incentive and marketing opportunities for promoting ENERGY STAR certified products, and to enable all partners to coordinate with the appropriate contact from other partner organizations on promotional opportunities.