Steven R. Schiller

Electricity End Uses, Energy Efficiency, and Distributed Energy Resources Baseline

Author(s): Schwartz, Lisa; Wei, Max; Morrow, William; Deason, Jeff; Schiller, Steven R.; Leventis, Greg; Smith, Sarah; Leow, Woei Ling; Levin, Todd; Plotkin, Steven; Zhou, Yan

Evaluation of U.S. Building Energy Benchmarking and Transparency Programs: Attributes, Impacts, and Best Practices

Author(s): Mims, N; Schiller, S; Stuart, E; Schwartz, L; Kramer, C; Faesy, R | Abstract: In the last decade, a new policy area has emerged to boost energy efficiency in buildings that focuses on the simple action of measuring energy use as compared to buildings of similar type and size, and making that data publicly available. These efforts, referred to as benchmarking and transparency (BaT) policies, seek to unlock new energy efficiency opportunities in the country’s existing buildings by promoting data-driven decision-making and creating stronger market signals. This report focuses on the 24 state and local jurisdictions that (as of December 31, 2016) require owners of privately owned commercial buildings, multifamily buildings, or both to comply with a BaT policy. The report provides a summary of U.S. BaT policy design and implementation characteristics, reports results and impacts for jurisdictions with BaT policies, and discusses opportunities for increasing the efficacy of BaT policies, as well as suggested areas for further research. Among the findings, all but one of the BaT policy evaluation studies reviewed indicate some reduction (from 1.6% to 14%) in energy use, energy costs, or energy intensity over the two- to four-year period of the analyses. More specifically, most of the studies reviewed indicate 3% to 8% reductions in gross energy consumption or energy use intensity over a two- to four-year period of BaT policy implementation. Two additional evaluation studies indicate that there is a causal relationship between BaT policies and energy savings or energy cost savings. These documented impacts should be reviewed with some caution. While consistently showing energy savings benefits associated with BaT policies, these savings estimates should be considered preliminary because of the limited period of analyses and inconsistencies in analysis methods for the various studies. A nationally standardized method for data collection, reporting, and evaluation of BaT policies—developed with an advisory group of state and local jurisdictions, energy efficiency and evaluation experts, building owner and real estate associations, and other stakeholders—could improve the consistency and quality of BaT impact studies, providing policymakers and others with a more complete understanding of the present and future impacts of these policies.

Energy Savings Lifetimes and Persistence

This technical brief explains the concepts of energy savings lifetimes and savings persistence and discusses how program administrators use these factors to calculate savings for efficiency measures, programs and portfolios. Savings lifetime is the length of time that one or more energy efficiency measures or activities save energy, and savings persistence is the change in savings throughout the functional life of a given efficiency measure or activity. Savings lifetimes are essential for assessing the lifecycle benefits and cost effectiveness of efficiency activities and for forecasting loads in resource planning. The brief also provides estimates of savings lifetimes derived from a national collection of costs and savings for electric efficiency programs and portfolios.

Status and Opportunities for Improving the Consistency of Technical Reference Manuals

Across the United States, energy-efficiency program administrators rely on Technical Reference Manuals (TRMs) as sources for calculations and deemed savings values for specific, well-defined efficiency measures. TRMs play an important part in energy efficiency program planning by providing a common and consistent source for calculation of ex ante and often ex post savings. They thus help reduce energy-efficiency resource acquisition costs by obviating the need for extensive measurement and verification and lower performance risk for program administrators and implementation contractors. This paper considers the benefits of establishing region-wide or national TRMs and considers the challenges of such undertaking due to the difficulties in comparing energy savings across jurisdictions. We argue that greater consistency across TRMs in the approaches used to determine deemed savings values, with more transparency about assumptions, would allow better comparisons in savings estimates across jurisdictions as well as improve confidence in reported efficiency measure savings. To support this thesis, we review approaches for the calculation of savings for select measures in TRMs currently in use in 17 jurisdictions. The review reveals differences in the saving methodologies, technical assumptions, and input variables used for estimating deemed savings values. These differences are described and their implications are summarized, using four, common energy-efficiency measures as examples. Recommendations are then offered for establishing a uniform approach for determining deemed savings values.

Coordinating Demand-Side Efficiency Evaluation, Measurement and Verification Among Western States: Options for Documenting Energy and Non-Energy Impacts for the Power Sector:

Demand-side energy efficiency (efficiency) represents a low-cost opportunity to reduce electricity consumption and demand and provide a wide range of non-energy benefits, including avoiding air pollution. Efficiency-related energy and non-energy impacts are determined and documented by implementing evaluation, measurement and verification (EM&V) systems. This technical brief describes efficiency EM&V coordination strategies that Western states can consider taking on together, outlines EM&V-related products that might be appropriate for multistate coordination, and identifies some implications of coordination. Coordinating efficiency EM&V activities can save both time and costs for state agencies and stakeholders engaged in efficiency activities and can be particularly beneficial for multiple states served by the same utility.