EM&V Quarterly Update Q3 2018

Directors Note

Travels with M&V 2.0: Introducing the Missouri Guidebook

Rick Steves is an American travel writer, author, and television personality well known for his many guidebooks for travel through Europe. His books provide high level quick picks for sights, eating, and sleeping as well as in-depth coverage of some choice destinations. Why am I telling you this? Because a guidebook was recently published for the EM&V community in Missouri. It’s called Your Guidebook to Adoption of M&V2.0¹. Rick Steves could not have done a better job. This new M&V 2.0 guidebook helps you navigate the subject matter.

The purpose of the guidebook is to provide stakeholders with a better understanding of M&V 2.0 without being an exhaustive (or exhausting) resource. It is intended to encourage the support and framing of regional discussions on the impact of innovative technologies and enhanced data availability for EM&V efforts at the state and national level and to strengthen efficiency programs in the future.

This guidebook treats the reader/EM&V stakeholder like a traveler heading for the exotic world of M&V 2.0. What it lacks in cute travel photos, it makes up for with engaging writing and superb organization for ease of use and comprehension. There are several helpful sections, including a “Guide to the Guide” and a section called “Choosing Your Destination: What Problem Are You Solving?” For the want-to-see everything-in-24-hours kind of tourist, there are equivalents of quick picks in the section “Surveying the Landscape: Examples of New Program Models.” You get the idea. For the NEEP audience – in particular for the state partners involved in the Connecticut M&V 2.0 Pilot Research project – recommended reading might include the section “Stretching Your Legs: Trying a Pilot” and “Rules of the Road: Regulatory Considerations.” And novice travelers in this domain will likely find the foreign language dictionary (i.e. Abbreviations and Acronyms), other definitions and background, or the appendix with an M&V2.0 group activity exercise, of interest. 

For more on M&V 2.0, don’t forget to register for NEEP’s October 12 webinar on Pay For Performance and to join us for the M&V 2.0 Workshop in Burlington, VT on November 7.

Data and Tools for Planning/Forecasting for Strategic Electrification – how does the region stack up?

Many state energy offices and cities in the Northeast are exploring strategic electrification as a strategy to help meet policy goals of decarbonization. Some of the key elements of such strategies (heat pumps, building retrofits, etc.) are market transformation activities aligned with NEEP’s mission to accelerate energy efficiency. Thus, with support from NREL and the U.S. DOE and consulting assistance from Synapse Energy Economics, NEEP recently completed a regional assessment (qualitative survey) of what tools and data are being used or are needed for forecasting and planning. The focus was on state energy officials and other stakeholders, such as efficiency program administrators, city planners, and air regulators in New England and New York who are involved in planning. This work builds on NEEP’s white paper, Northeastern Regional Assessment of Strategic Electrification, and the Action Plan to Accelerate Strategic Electrification in the Northeast.

Results of the recent survey confirm that while various stakeholders in the region are heavily involved in planning for strategic electrification, overall this is still a nascent activity and there are various ways that stakeholders could be helped. Some important data sources and studies have been developed by national labs and U.S. DOE; NEEP can help build awareness of these. While it is too early for the field to identify a set of “best” practices, some states have developed valuable resources that can serve as good examples for other states or entities. These include New York, Massachusetts, and Vermont. John Black of ISO-New England, who had the opportunity to preview results of this research, observed that participation in a regional collaborative effort in which information could be shared and compared – or potentially jointly developed - would be useful.

Look for a Youtube version of the webinar presentation to be posted in early October here.   

You can find the slides here.

As follow up to this study, NEEP is exploring opportunities to further build on this work, with the goal of helping states and other stakeholders meet data and resource needs. Various data needs were identified, centered on heat pump and EV products and markets. The laundry list includes:     

• Benefit-cost analyses of heat pumps and EV supply equipment
• Analysis of non-monetary barriers to heat pump and EV adoption
• Training resources for HP installers
• Forecasting tools and data collection on EVs and heat pumps
• Lifecycle cost analysis tools for heat pumps and EVs
• Customer preferences for heat pumps
• Market data on heat pumps and EVs
• Cost and performance data on heat pumps
• Building inventory and performance data
• EV-related data (incentives, infrastructure costs, market penetration, EV performance)
• Loadshape data to characterize heat pump and EV charging usage patterns

EIA Report: Regional Overview of Efficiency Measure Incentives Now Available

NEEP recently completed a report, Northeast Regional Energy Efficiency Database, Program and Measure Data: Report on Results of Investigations, summarizing results of research conducted in support of the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) and its activities around validation of the National Energy Modeling System (NEMS). The goal of the research was to characterize costs and benefits of electric and gas energy efficiency measures, at the measure level. In addition to researching efficiency measures, the study included a survey which qualitatively characterizes trends by state in program designs and expectations of measures being phased in and out in the near future. Appendix A of this study is a compilation of incentive levels for many utility programs within the region. The report – and Appendix A: Measure Incentives – are available by request from NEEP (email to etitus@neep.org). NEEP continues research in this area and will be collect incentive data from more utilities and states in the region over the next year.

Cost-effectiveness and non-energy impact research 

Cost-effectiveness is a hot topic and one that presents both opportunities and challenges for energy efficiency program administrators in our current dynamic energy landscape. NEEP hosted a webinar on recent non-energy impact research– including breaking news of developments relating to the NSPM, or National Standard Practice Manual.

Takeaways from this webinar include:

E4TheFuture is developing a repository for non-energy impact studies that will be populated with results from evaluations, and it will include brief descriptions of methodologies used. The repository is expected to become available later this year. E4TheFuture is also scoping expansions to the NSPM that will go beyond energy efficiency to deliver guidance on other distributed energy resources. NEEP has been participating in committee review and input to these efforts.

From an economic theory point of view, non-energy impacts are an element of consumer or producer surplus for energy efficiency program customers – aka ratepayers. Only some of the benefits beyond energy are being quantified. Evaluators need to consider when it is appropriate to add up benefits and when not to double count benefits, depending on the methods of analysis and types of benefits being estimated.

National Grid Massachusetts is a veteran in terms of evaluation of non-energy impacts in all sectors, thanks to state regulatory requirements to provide all cost-effective efficiency. It will be looking at  cost-effectiveness of some distributed resources (PV), and its evaluation plans include multifamily and low income benefit estimation, developing an overarching framework for more research, and conducting non-energy benefit research targeted to specific sectors and building types.

Non-energy impacts prove valuable to program implementation and customer marketing, even when not a regulatory requirement. This was demonstrated by AEP Ohio in recent research and case studies which help convince customers not to opt out of energy efficiency. AEP Ohio is hoping that regulators will include non-energy benefits in the future.

Smart control technologies hold promise for cost effectiveness as well as in other ways for advanced/integrated efficiency. They open up a host of new, exciting non-energy benefits. In an example of hospitals installing smart lighting that can also serve as other tracking, the savings in operations (no pun intended) costs can swamp the energy benefits. 

The webinar recording and slides are available from NEEP’s website. 

 

Mark Your Calendar

Upcoming Forum, NEEP, and other webinars and meetings of potential interest

• NEEP Summit, EE By the Sea,  October 1-3, 2018, Middletown, RI
• NEEP’s October 12 webinar on Pay For Performance
• M&V2.0 Workshop in Burlington, VT on November 7
• IEPEC Abstracts Due: October 31, 2018
• Strategic Energy Management Workshop in Burlington, VT on November 6
• Check AESP for interesting Brown Bag webinars
• Check Synapse Energy Economics for Third Thursday webinars
• Check IEPEC for webinars on all kinds of evaluation topics

 

¹ Ethan Goldman, 2018. Your Guidebook to Adoption of M&V2.0. Prepared by VEIC for the Missouri Department of Economics, Division of Energy under a U.S. Department of Energy, State Energy Program grant-funded project. Available at:  https://energy.mo.gov/sites/energy/files/a-guidebook-to-adoption-of-M-V-2.0.pdf