EM&V Quarterly Update - Q3 2019

Director's Note

Getting Smarter with Energy and Technology: Smart Homes Energy Management Systems Conference  (Boston, MA July 17-18)

What is happening in the smart technology space at the intersection of utility programs, vendors, residential customers, and policy?

• Whole-building approaches that make use of smart technologies hold promise to address sustainability goals and develop utility business opportunities in our changing energy landscape. One big focus for utilities and vendors alike is customers – their experience, engagement, and interaction with the grid. Smart technologies can meet companies’ business interests and their customers’ needs by broadening the scope and depth of customer relationships.
• The non-energy attributes of smart technologies are key selling points that can and do drive adoption of smart technologies. Non-energy impacts can be elements of cost-effectiveness analysis of EE or DERS – as discussed in the National Standard Practice Manual.
• Roughly 30 percent of consumers are likely to buy a smart thermostat or appliance within the year and over 70 percent are interested in bill credits for reducing usage during peak periods (Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative). 
• The digital transformation is helping create smart cities. Seat Pleasant, Maryland, for example, enjoys innovative tracking systems and rapid response features that are improving  security, resilience, economic development, and social services as well as energy efficiency.
• Creative partnerships linking communications and smart controls (such as a Comcast and Logical Buildings multifamily project) have increased resilience of buildings and the grid in New York City, for example.   

Informing Innovation through Evaluation and Research: IEPEC Conference (Denver, CO August 22- 24)

What trends are appearing in this disruptive energy industry, and are evaluators up to that challenge? This conference reflected the sense of urgency for utilities and policymakers to adjust priorities and refocus energy programs and evaluation and research on the value of distributed energy resources, on greening the grid, and on transforming transportation to meet clean energy goals. The conference included a diverse mix of traditional efficiency program evaluation topics along with provocative discussion and insights from forward-looking research.

A key role for energy efficiency programs today is to buy time as paradigms change while additional distributed resources and carbon-conscious strategies can be integrated and brought to scale in this evolving energy landscape.

Evaluators can tell us “what works” from a broader industry perspective when evaluation’s roles extend beyond compliance, tracking, and traditional energy program impact assessment. The evaluator skill set will help the industry succeed in achieving new policy goals and developing new M&V frameworks or paradigms. This includes:

• Conducting policy evaluation as well as traditional energy program evaluation practices;
• Helping utilities plan for EV infrastructure and other loadshape profiles;
• Examining trade-offs in moving away from gas;
• Distribution system planning under a new costing model, including stacking up combinations of DERs (“think like a garden, not like a grocery store”).

Climate change and other new metrics are urgently needed. They can support environmental policy and help align energy programs with climate goals. This involves many aspects, including adopting a whole-building framework as a basis for looking at energy use, and assessing life-cycle impacts, GHG impacts, and grid impacts. Metrics are needed to distinguish climate mitigation and climate adaptation strategies and their overlaps.

More distributed energy resource (DER) evaluation and research will help the industry evolve. Even though no public benefit charges cover DER evaluation in our current siloed framework, some insights are available on topics like valuing non-wires alternatives and their potential, adoption and impact of solar and storage, and  EV markets and their load impacts. More important work for evaluators on the following technical and policy topics is recommended:

• Operable and standardized definitions of DERs;
• Research to understand the “why” of DER adoption;
• Lessons on loadshifting and the alignment between TOU impacts on utilities and on customers.

Technology advances (advanced M&V/open source software, big data) are penetrating the practice. M&V2.0 software and uses of AMI and metering data from facilities or smart technologies are being incorporated into program design, program implementation, and program evaluation. For example, these resources are being applied in pay-for-performance program designs. Also, demand response evaluations cost-effectively leverage huge datasets and provide rapid turnaround of results. Energy efficiency programs can filter results by vendor and can get early feedback on program savings from commercial customers. For programs that include continuous monitoring, embedding data collection and analysis into projects during implementation is a strategy that can help programs optimize overall program results. Companies that have AMI data on all customers have the opportunity to segment customer groups and characterize baselines with greater definition. Geographic information system (GIS) software is growing in importance as a tool to add location as a defining variable in evaluation and research on clean energy and efficiency program impacts. Meanwhile, research and collaboration is taking place to improve modeling of whole buildings and to establish performance criteria for advanced software tools.

Ensuring environmental justice in the new energy landscape presents new and continued opportunities and challenges. Two noteworthy examples of plans designed with environmental justice goals in mind include Vermont’s plan to collaborate in the public health space for “vulnerable populations” and United Illuminating’s “solar for all” program.

Also, recent energy program evaluations delivered insights on  C&I lighting markets, cannabis impacts, smart home devices and thermostats, heat pumps, and market transformation program strategies.

What’s Hot in Industrial Efficiency? ACEEE Summer Study on Industry (Portland, OR August 12 – 14)

There’s no question that sustainability is hot! The ACEEE Summer Study gave attendees the opportunity to discuss best practices and new approaches, with an eye on the importance of coordinated approaches.

The Strategic Energy Management (SEM) summit introduced attendees to the new North American SEM Collaborative (NASEMC), which is an initiative to advance the success of energy management programs in North America. In one of the sessions, representatives of the Regional Energy Efficiency Organizations (REEOs) discussed current barriers to advancement of SEM programs and strategies for overcoming these barriers. Some of the takeaways for the Northeast region were:

• State barriers are different from customer barriers. Finding ways to overcome both is important.
• The messaging to customers must be very clear; it should include and convey the value of SEM programs that go beyond potential claimable savings.
• Barriers to energy savings in the industrial, commercial and municipal sectors vary by state and solutions should be tailored accordingly.  Furthermore, there are times when SEM is not a viable solution, and a long-term engagement is required.
• Positive outcomes that can be recognized from customers with multiple facilities can be leveraged.
• Activities like treasure hunts work well to engage facilities that are on the fence about SEM.

 

Pathways to Decarbonization: EPRI/NEEP/NESCAUM Symposium (Brooklyn, NY August 28 – 29)

What made this symposium a success? As NEEP’s Executive Director Sue Coakley puts it: the right audience  - including many from government - came together at the right time for the right topic of solutions for decarbonizing buildings and transportation. It affirmed that people understand the sense of urgency to meet our region’s environmental goals, and presenting both buildings and transportation topics helped connect the dots.

In addition to the robust two-day agenda, there was a day of pre-conference workshops, including one on buildings as grid assets. Grid-interactive efficient buildings (GEBS) feature a holistic blend of distributed generation, energy storage solutions, and smart devices that respond both to grid reliability and customer needs.

David Nemtzow, U.S. DOE’s Buildings Technology Office (BTO) Director, emphasized the need for key players to work together to accelerate the adoption of the many technologies that are needed to make this concept a reality. BTO is currently investing a lot of resources in this, and working with related areas, including building energy modeling, decision tools, analysis and valuation, building codes, appliance standards, and test procedures.

Discussion followed in sessions on: 1) Drivers, status, and needs of GEBS in the Northeast and 2) Regional opportunities to advance buildings as grid assets. Where are GEBs activities happening in the Northeast region? What will take to bring to scale building technologies that respond to the modernized grid? What are the top priorities for additional R&D on the topic of buildings as grid assets? How can regional GEBs coordination and/or collaboration happen?

High-level takeaways, as shared by Scott Johnstone, NEEP Board Member and New England Energy Market Leader at VHB included:

• A holistic approach  means efficient, connected, smart, flexible
• There is a need for robust grid monitoring and managing of GEBs-related systems
• There is a need to focus on where GEBs technology has to grow
• There is a need to integrate both EE and DE programs
• As a region, we should document and share best practices and lessons learned

 

New NEEP Resources

• Electricity Journal Special Issue: NEEP authored “Transforming Our Buildings for a Low-Carbon Era: Five Key Strategies” in coordination with the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP). The article may be accessed for free through the first week in November using this open access link: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Zl7S3ic-~-VHC
• The latest REED Rendering

 

Mark Your Calendar

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

• AESP Northeast Chapter Fall Conference: October 15, 2019 in New Haven, CT
• ACEEE EE as a Resource Conference: October 15 – 17, 2019 in Minneapolis, MN