As described last week, net savings and program attribution are measures of an efficiency program's influence on making a project happen for utility customers. There is a range of influence that energy savings has in motivating customers to do a project, and that range is 0% to 100%, while accurate attribution results may be 90% or better. The role of energy savings in a decision can be largely irrelevant in determining attribution. How? Non-energy benefits! The situation reminds me of fluid dynamics, a core course in mechanical engineering. There are major friction losses and minor friction losses. Major losses are…
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This week, we finish the series on attribution studies. First, let me explain, while I beat up attribution assessments, they are necessary. This post will conclude with how I think they should be used. Experimental v Quasi-Experimental Second, I want to make a couple comments about last week’s post. Near the end, I explained randomized control trials (RCTs) for determining attribution. Test samples need to be drawn before the attribution study using the RCT. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this never happens when determining the attribution of an efficiency program. The attribution study always occurs after, or at best,…
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This week, we are continuing our dive into attribution, which is the impact an intervention or program has on a population – in our case, efficiency programs in a service territory or state. Last week, I used the term comparison group rather than control group. They can be used interchangeably and sometimes erroneously. A comparison group is a baseline to observe what happens in absence of intervention. It avoids guessing counterfactuals and unobservables altogether. The Unobservable My example of a comparison group was Fox Cities, WI to observe the impacts of a pizza-promotion intervention in La Crosse, WI. For purposes…
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Consultants to our industry advise small business owners to have life insurance in the amount of company value held so surviving partners can carry on without a crushing debt load. I begin with a story of the torturous quest for more insurance. Insurance Rant Once insured, the seller of insurance wants customers to be healthy, do preventive maintenance, and have proactive checkups like an annual physical. Much of this is even “free.” So they like us? Not so much. For the next policy you need, you’re better off leaving no trace. God forbid something might need to be pre-emptively treated.…
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The average American adult faces 35,000 decisions every day. Whoa! It is called decision fatigue, and when people get too much, they default to no, or doing nothing. I would also add, speaking from personal experience, that the older I get the less time and fewer decisions I want to make. Good enough is good enough for my choices. You best believe this topic has a lot to do with business (i.e. efficiency program) success or not success. I’m a late adopter of new software. I was late to Firefox, and then late to Chrome. In fact, the reason I…
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