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

This packet contains all the contractor reporting and verification forms required by Energy Impact Illinois.

This report explores energy efficiency programs that target deep energy savings through substantial improvements to existing residential buildings.

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.

Given the many priorities state and local governments and residents face following a disaster, integrating energy efficiency and resiliency into residential rebuilding can be a challenge. Fortunately, research into state experience with energy-efficient and resilient rebuilding in the residential sector has revealed several key strategies that other state and local communities can employ to mitigate the impacts of a natural disaster and plan for coordinated and effective disaster recovery. This report focuses on the experiences of State and Territory Energy Offices as leaders and key players in the rebuilding process.

A sample for defining and elaborating on the specifics of a clean energy loan program.

A sample RFP from Greensboro, North Carolina, for energy efficiency loan products.

Tenant engagement programs encourage the people who live in a multifamily property to change their behavior in order to achieve a goal. These programs are an attractive option for owners or managers who want to improve energy efficiency. This report assesses the key features of existing programs, makes recommendations for improvements that housing providers and advocates can use immediately, and outlines a wish list for the future.

This policy brief provides insight into the transaction of an on-bill energy efficiency loan portfolio between two mission-oriented lenders, Craft3 in Oregon and Self Help in North Carolina.

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.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how to identify stakeholders and map them to determine the best engagement strategy.

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.

The State Energy Data System (SEDS) is the source of the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) comprehensive state energy statistics. EIA’s goal in maintaining SEDS is to create historical time series of energy production, consumption, prices, and expenditures by state that are defined as consistently as possible over time and across sectors for analysis and forecasting purposes.

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.

Overview of Michigan Saves' employer outreach initiative to drive uptake of home energy upgrades.

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

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

The intent of the Handbook is to: Encourage energy efficiency design in new construction as well as in acquisition/rehab projects; Showcase the funding sources, programs, incentives, and assistance available to further lower investments in energy efficiency; Overcome owner-developers perception that achieving large energy savings is usually too expensive, time consuming or difficult; Demonstrate design concepts, processes, and practices that will help to minimize the costs of high performance buildings; Highlight the non-energy benefits associated with high performance buildings; Dispel the myth that cheaply built homes are affordable to operate in terms of utility costs; Emphasize that energy efficiency lowers utility bills, thereby enhancing home affordability; Stress that a home that just complies with Title 24 is the least efficient home you can legally build in California.

This database provides comprehensive information on state, federal, local, and utility incentives and policies that are in place to support renewable energy and energy efficiency.

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

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 website provides information on U.S. housing characteristics, including energy consumption data.

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.

As part of the Rhode Island Energy Challenge, National Grid called on its Rhode Island residential electric and gas customers to take a pledge to “Find Your Four” as part of a statewide community initiative to encourage homeowners to find four ways to save energy at home. A participant survey revealed that Rhode Island residential customers liked hearing energy conservation/efficiency information via the Challenge; the Challenge had them thinking and acting differently; and the Challenge had customers participating more actively in energy efficiency programs. This report provides more information on the campaign’s major impact in helping National Grid accomplish important goals, including those related to portfolio savings and customer-centric program outreach and engagement.

This webcast discusses policy and planning considerations for incorporating behavior programs into efficiency portfolios.

This article discusses alternative formats for training students on building science, energy assessments, and energy efficiency upgrade installation. These include using videos instead of class lectures, maximizing hands-on activities, using social learning, and learning from games.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on introducing and building interest in multi-family energy efficiency.

With so much to gain, how can we optimize low-income energy efficiency programs to maximize the benefits for financially vulnerable citizens, as well as program implementers and the broader population of ratepayers? This paper shares four important lessons for engaging low-income customers based on Opower’s experience in partnering with utilities to serve the low-income population.

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 how loan performance data is tracked and analyzed, and what the data shows.

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

Template from the Better Buildings Neighborhood Program for collecting customer usage data from utilities.

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 paper focuses on how efficiency upgrades affect the financial performance of multifamily buildings. Increasing the energy efficiency of multifamily buildings not only helps owners improve building operation, but also provides a lending opportunity for financial institutions. Energy efficiency program implementers and policy makers who aid in shaping utility Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standards also benefit from understanding the full range of positive effects associated with multifamily energy efficiency improvements. These non-energy benefits (NEBs) can range from improved health to job creation and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Instructional step-by-step guide for visiting a home to discuss and install energy efficiency measures.

This radio interview highlights how the NeighborWorks program in Vermont is raising awareness of home energy efficiency measures among residents through neighbor-to-neighbor outreach.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how to assess, initiate and sustain partnerships.

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 report summarizes findings from a national field study of indoor air quality in homes treated under the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP). The study tested and monitored 514 single-family homes in 35 states and served by 88 local weatherization agencies. The study focused on five indoor environmental quality parameters: carbon monoxide, radon, formaldehyde, indoor temperature and humidity, and indoor moisture.

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.

Home improvement companies have to understand how to connect their services to their target audience’s typical purchase cycle. They have to think about how customers find them, where customers are researching specific program services, and what prompts them to call one business versus another. This guide highlights the state of home improvement marketing today, the benefits of going digital, and the five best digital marketing services for home improvement organizations.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on bringing energy efficiency programs to schools.

This article provides 10 tips home energy contractors can use to update their marketing outreach and improve their customer service.

This case study highlights a 20-unit apartment building that gained energy savings and comfort through Efficiency Maine.

This case study highlights the first project completed under Efficiency Maine's Multifamily Efficiency Program.

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 peer exchange call summary focused on administering energy efficiency programs as a nonprofit organization.

This webcast reviews the SEE Action report which provides policymakers with principles and recommendations to understand and manage concerns about bill and rate impacts resulting from requiring utilities to provide efficiency programs.

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

RePower Bainbridge works with local residents to find creative ways to increase energy awareness, including developing an innovative Island Energy Dashboard, which displays real-time energy use around the island.

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.

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.

These outreach materials from BetterBuildings for Michigan include a photograph and quote from credible members of the Grand Valley State University (GSVU) community that served as early adopters for the program.

This peer exchange call summary focused on bond funding.

Collection of case studies from New Hampshire that highlight successful energy efficiency upgrades.

Chapel Hill WISE created this policy to establish a standard procedure for corrective action and dismissal for contractors. The policy lists standards that contractors are expected to meet, and procedures that the program follows to review concerns, place contractors on probation, and dismiss those who are unable to resolve identified issues.

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

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on the benefits of community assessments and strategies for gathering information.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on state policies that help promote energy efficiency.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on shared funding arrangements with contractors.

This report characterizes and explores cryptic barriers to energy efficiency. These barriers are cryptic in the sense that they are hidden or unrecognized; they do not stem from the same market failures that have been the subject of extensive study and the target of many policy and program interventions. Cryptic barriers reflect several different underlying problems, including regulatory uncertainty, archaic or legacy regulations, and inaccurate ratings and standards. Drawing on case studies, the objective of this report is to suggest opportunities for policy actions that could improve residential building efficiency and to propose potential tools to eliminate cryptic barriers.

This case study explains how Community Power Works segmented its primary audience by focusing on owners of oil-heated homes with great results. This case study shares the program's outreach strategy and tactics for recruiting owners of oil-heated homes.

This database (in development) contains information about existing energy efficiency loan programs in the United States. For each loan program the following data is presented: financing mechanism (e.g., credit enhancement, on-bill financing), market (e.g., city, state), sector (e.g., residential single family, residential multi-family), and program sponsorship (e.g., DOE programs, ARRA, private lenders).

An interactive website that provides residential building professionals with access to expert information on hundreds of high-performance design and construction topics, including air sealing and insulation, HVAC components, windows, indoor air quality, and much more.

Efficiency Maine developed this online portal, where many of its program forms are available for download (e.g., program overviews and manuals, participation agreements, and related application materials).

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on energy advising and concierge services without American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grants.

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

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.

Matrix of participating lenders and associated loan information.

Flyer for contractors that explains the EI2 loan program and loan eligibility criteria.

Flyer for contractors that explains the steps needed to complete the EI2 loan process.

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 resource is designed to help new users to ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager get started with benchmarking.

This study of Energy Upgrade California aims to: establish baseline consumer brand awareness; understand consumer associations with the brand; and understand consumer awareness of energy management and bill savings opportunities and barriers to taking action on those opportunities.

This study reviews consumer-facing energy-focused websites and their related assets to provide a comprehensive roadmap for website development to transform and optimize the Energy Upgrade California web portal to better support the program efforts facilitating consumer and small business participation.

Example survey about a homeowner's experience with a visit from an energy advisor as part of EnergySmart in Boulder County, Colorado.

This report presents the results of an independent evaluation of Efficiency Maine Trust's Residential Direct Install Program for Fiscal Year 2013.

This guide provides a snapshot of the federal finance facilities available for energy efficiency upgrades and clean energy deployment. The guide is organized by market segment, and also includes a table that presents each finance facility by type of instrument along with the federal agency that administers the program.

This report is the first comparative analysis of utility-run behavior programs. It lays the groundwork for further program development by developing a classification scheme, or taxonomy, that sorts programs into discrete categories. This study counted 281 such programs, many with multiple iterations, offered by 114 energy providers and third parties between 2008 and 2013. After sorting programs by distinguishing features such as delivery channel and incentive type, the study arrived at 20 major program categories grouped in three large families: Cognition Programs, Calculus Programs, and Social Interaction Programs.

This case study discusses Energy Impact Illinois' marketing evolution from a broad outreach campaign to a Òhouse partyÓ approach that brought Chicago homeowners, neighbors, and friends together to learn about energy efficiency opportunities, while increasing demand for home energy assessments and upgrades.

This report provides an overview of the fundamentals of energy efficiency financing program planning and design and provides tools for deciding the objectives and mechanics of EE financing initiatives. The report walks policymakers and program administrators through key questions that must be resolved to better understand what efficiency financing can be reasonably expected to achieve, and for whom.

This guide provides practical guidance for designing, implementing, and managing a green revolving fund (GRF) at a college, university, or other institution.

This guide introduces the Community Energy Strategic Plan (CESP) approach, a step-by-step process for creating a robust strategic energyÊ plan. The guide offers tools and tips to complete each step and highlights examples from successful planning efforts around the country.

This case study highlights the Help My House Pilot Program conducted in South Carolina by Central Electric Power Cooperative that included on-bill financing.

Study examining actual loan performance data to assess whether residential energy efficiency is associated with lower default and prepayment risks. Results show that default risks are on average 32 percent lower in energy-efficient homes, controlling for other loan determinants.

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 web-based database, created by Home Energy home performance magazine, enables users to search for training programs nationwide. Users can filter training programs by weatherization training areas, BPI certifications, and more.

This loan loss reserve fund agreement sets the terms and conditions of the loan loss reserve fund between Michigan Saves and partnering lenders.

This paper first details industry best practices for contest administration, including tips for developing an overall contest plan and timeline, product sponsor recruitment, building a dynamic informational website, maximizing customer participation, selecting the winning home, seamless installation management, capturing and documenting project results, conducting a high profile media open house and facilitating customer workshops that educate homeowners and strengthen trade ally relationships. This paper then presents results and key lessons learned from more than 20 contests supported with funds from local community sustainability programs, utility energy efficiency programs, and U.S. Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds between 2008 and 2012.

This blog post summarizes key elements of program design that relate to encouraging contractor participation and facilitating contractor and program success.

This report presents impact evaluation results for the Energy Savers program for large multi-family buildings. The Energy Savers program is run by CNT Energy and Community Investment Corporation. Initiated in January 2008 and now in its fifth year of existence, the Energy Savers program involves a variety of services to promote energy efficiency improvements for multi-family residential buildings of 5-50 units in the affordable housing market segment.

Philadelphia EnergyWorks helped sustain future programs by sharing marketing insights and program data with a local utility partner.