Thank you to Mike Frischmann (our Director of Evaluation Engineering) for contributing to this week’s Rant. Eight hundred pound gorilla alert! Energy efficiency program evaluation “best practices” need a big overhaul. I am not talking about best practices for doing impact evaluation like the Uniform Methods Project. It’s disgusting that so much money is spent on standards like that and others, while ulterior motives drive program evaluation in entirely different directions. Purpose of Program Evaluation The State and Local Energy Efficiency Action Network, aka SEE Action’s Energy Efficiency Program Impact Evaluation Guide, states the following are objectives of program evaluation.…
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I spent considerable time a year ago figuring out the various cost effectiveness tests that are applied to energy efficiency programs. Since they are so bizarre, it took me almost an hour again to relearn it. Thankfully, I documented it in language I can understand, and no one squawked about anything being wrong, so I’m going to believe it was right. For a refresher, that was Energy Efficiency Benefit/Cost Tests and a Handful of Excedrin. I won’t recycle all that information, but in this Rant I will advance the discussion to demonstrate that the usual benefit/cost test, the Total Resource…
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