When evaluating commercial and industrial (C&I) energy efficiency programs, it often seems like the most extensive and complicated projects (those most likely to be adjusted during our review) come in at the end of the year. Is that the case, or is that just selective memory? I wasn’t sure, so I decided to investigate. Making Waves Evaluations of C&I programs are often conducted in waves for several reasons. First, they provide more “real-time” feedback to program implementers to make changes to the program as quickly as possible. Segmenting projects into waves also spreads the evaluation work over a more extended…
Read More
In Part 1, we covered what energy code programs do and different ways of measuring code compliance. In this part, we will examine the steps needed to estimate program savings. Code adoption and compliance change over time. To estimate savings, we must consider the counterfactual of what would have happened if the program did not exist. When would a code have been adopted and how would building practices have changed over time? These are not easy questions, but let’s dig in. If Only It Was So Easy Recently I was looking through the Rhode Island TRM and chuckled when I found this description…
Read More
Building energy codes programs are a very cost-effective opportunity for energy savings and many utilities consider these programs the next frontier of energy efficiency. The potential savings from adopting more efficient building energy codes can be significant, but only if compliance is high. But do you measure compliance and how can the same building be 0%, 50%, 67%, or 80% compliant at the same time? Let’s dig into energy codes, what energy codes programs do, and how to evaluate their impacts. What Are Energy Codes? Building energy codes are local laws that establish requirements to limit the energy use in buildings,…
Read More
I am renovating my kitchen. The project was supposed to start in March 2020, but then the world shut down due to Covid. Now, nearly two years later, we are finally getting started. During that time, I have decided to switch from a gas range to an induction cooktop. While energy efficiency did factor into this decision, most of my reasoning to choose induction was due to its non-energy impacts. What are non-energy impacts and how do they play in the decision-making around energy efficiency? Read on! One benefit of putting off a big renovation for two years (and also…
Read More
A major theme of the Big Why of Evaluation is that evaluations always involve balancing accuracy and costs due to time and budget constraints as well as the pesky issue of dealing with counterfactuals. The eternal question of “how good is good enough” drives one of Michaels Energy’s core values of “intuitive analysis.” The key to impact evaluations is managing uncertainty. Often, this is measured in terms of confidence and precision related to sampling error (i.e., the industry standard 90% confidence/10% precision threshold), but there are many other types of error that we need to account for that cannot be…
Read More
“Baseline” is an incredibly important term in energy efficiency evaluation. It is thrown around often in many different contexts. So what does it mean? Michaels Energy is currently conducting several baseline studies, but when describing these studies to others, I realized that baselines and their related research can have many different meanings, each with important distinctions. Let’s jump into the deep end of energy efficiency wonkiness. At the most basic level, baselines represent the status quo against which interventions (e.g., new equipment, new policies, etc.) are measured. In energy efficiency, any discussion about baselines begins with whether we are talking…
Read More
