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Aug 31
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Evaluating the Inflation Reduction Act

By The Big Why of Evaluation
Earlier this month, Congress passed - and President Biden signed into law - the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the largest climate bill ever. While slimmed down and altered from the original House bill, the IRA (and, to a lesser extent, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law) will result in a huge influx of funding for clean energy, energy efficiency, and electrification. My initial reactions to hearing of the bill’s passing were elation that the US is finally going to be putting in a serious effort into mitigating climate change at the federal level and shock that it actually passed, given all of the false…
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Jul 06
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Hidden Barriers to Energy Efficiency

By The Big Why of Evaluation
At their core, energy efficiency programs exist to help the market overcome barriers preventing the adoption of energy-efficient equipment or behaviors. Some barriers, like the high first cost of equipment, are obvious and often targeted, but they may mask other obstacles that are even harder to overcome. Better understanding and addressing these overlooked barriers can help programs increase their participation and savings. Commonly Addressed Barriers When developing a program, the program administrator should create a program theory/logic model (PTLM) to list the barriers preventing the adoption of energy efficiency, followed by the activities to help the market overcome these barriers, then the…
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May 11
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The Case of the Wonky Solar Data

By The Big Why of Evaluation
No matter the methodology, we calculate energy savings or production using data. Sometimes, however, the data is missing or appears to be an outlier due to a variety of reasons. When this occurs we need to figure out why and how to fix it. Let’s dig into a recent issue with my solar panels as an example. The Backstory I am an unapologetic energy nerd. So it is no surprise that I love regularly looking at the online data dashboard for my home’s solar PV system. I find it so interesting that, despite the hour-to-hour changes in weather in New…
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Apr 13
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End of the Year Crunch: Does the Timing of Projects Affect Their Savings?

By The Big Why of Evaluation No Comments
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…
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Mar 28
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Decoding Code Compliance, Part 2

By The Big Why of Evaluation No Comments
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…
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Mar 02
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Decoding Code Compliance, Part 1

By The Big Why of Evaluation No Comments
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,…
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Jan 19
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Kitchen Renovations, Induction Cooking, and Non-Energy Impacts

By The Big Why of Evaluation No Comments
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…
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Dec 22
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Impact Evaluations – How Good is Good Enough?

By The Big Why of Evaluation No Comments
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…
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Nov 23
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How to Claim Savings from a Closed Business

By The Big Why of Evaluation No Comments
Every now and then, we are asked to evaluate an energy efficiency project completed at a business that has since closed. This poses some tricky questions: how much savings should a program claim for these measures and how much savings will actually occur? As the industry shifts from focusing on first-year savings to lifetime savings, this issue becomes even more problematic. If evaluators find that a business has closed during the program year or during the evaluation cycle, we have two general options when estimating savings for the project: Option 1: Assume full first-year savings for the project and account for…
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Oct 27
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Timing is Everything

By The Big Why of Evaluation No Comments
Last month’s post discussed the need for proper accounting of energy sources to accurately quantify carbon emissions. With that as a background, we can now dive into the importance of the timing of energy use and savings. The carbon content of electricity is both temporal and locational – some areas and time periods have cleaner electricity than others due to the generation mix in that place at that time. One kilowatt of electricity is not equal to another – we need to consider how and when it was produced and used. Setting the Stage Our field of energy efficiency has historically focused…
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