Two recent papers are helping to inform the status of advanced whole-building software and its applications. In December, Tim Guiterman from EnergySavvy released a white paper, Getting Real on M&V2.0 Standards, which discusses key principles and steps to establish standards that would promote consistency and credibility of advanced M&V tools. The paper argues effectively that consistency in performance of these new technologies can enhance the energy efficiency industry’s efforts to “scale, modernize and support the efforts of distribution planning, grid optimization, targeted load reductions and reducing emissions.”
Also, a Lawrence Berkeley National Lab research report from September 2017 reviews 16 commercially-available technologies combined with a national review of their use. It also considers the state of application of advanced whole-building savings estimation at the regulatory, state, and utility levels. Research was based on literature review, stakeholder discussions, and consideration of the M&V principles documented in IPMVP and ASHRAE guidance on whole-building impact assessment. Many of the report’s findings affirm the conclusions drawn in the 2016 and 2017 NEEP briefs on advanced M&V. The LBNL report concludes that five topics were ranked most highly:
- Pilots to demonstrate the practical viability of M&V 2.0;
- Standard requirements for accuracy and reporting of M&V 2.0 results;
- Methods to handle non-routine events and adjustments (critical to ensuring that meter-based savings are representative of savings due to implemented efficiency measures, not other unrelated changes in the building);
- Standard M&V 2.0 software testing procedures;
- Expansion of the methods in today’s tools to handle baselines other than existing conditions.
NEEP Research Begins on Energy Efficiency Programs and Measures to Support the Energy Information Administration
NEEP launched a year-long project, requested and funded by the DOE Energy Information Administration (EIA), which will help support data collection and modeling activities conducted by EIA and will also benefit NEEP’s stakeholders. In addition to helping support NEEP’s update of its Regional Energy Efficiency Database (REED) with 2016 state-level program data, EIA sought NEEP’s assistance to characterize expenditures on program incentives and cost-effectiveness. Ideally, these characterization will be at the measure or end- use level and be collected for most of the major end-use equipment types which are modeled in the NEMS Residential and Commercial Demand Modules.
The NEEP project contributes to having high quality data on energy efficiency programs to inform EIA’s important role of providing energy information. EIA’s comprehensive data collection program covers the full spectrum of energy sources, end uses, and energy flows. EIA also prepares informative energy analyses, monthly short-term forecasts of energy market trends, and long-term U.S. and international energy outlooks. EIA’s responsibilities include assessing the energy and economic impact that conservation measures and other energy end use policies have on demand and prices. Its data, analyses, and other products are available primarily through its website, eia.gov.
Case studies of residential and commercial software applications from Firstfuel, Gridium, EnerNoc, OPower, EnergySavvy, and Resi Speak illustrate that these tools are serving a wide variety of clients and needs. Cases include applications involving between one and three buildings to programs or clients with thousands or hundreds of buildings. The case studies point to various strengths of auto M&V, including its ability to provide process evaluation insights, the value of granular data, and the ability to diagnose opportunities for savings, and to examine persistence of behaviors over time. For example, these tools are useful in monitoring and comparing performance across implementation contractors within a given program and utility, to provide abundant, granular data for randomized control trial evaluation of behavioral programs – programs which could not be evaluated rigorously without whole facility-level data. While the increased granularity, frequency, and access provided by advanced metering data and software tools are likely to impact how evaluation is performed, very few case studies address the evaluation application directly. More research is needed to demonstrate how auto M&V can and should be deployed in order to evaluate savings, accuracy and cost of auto M&V for this purpose.
Buttoning Up for Winter with Efficiency in the NEEP Region
NEEP’s latest REED Rendering prepared by Samantha Caputo tackles the topic of winter peak. As illustrated below, growth in demand savings in the region has dipped, starting in 2014. The retrofit efficiency programs, responsible for over 50 percent of these savings in 2015, are a vital contributor to energy efficiency’s role in winter peak demand in the region.
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With the recent arctic blasts of cold and snow, energy efficiency and demand response to reduce winter peak demand is a topic of interest now – but may become even more so, as policies and plans to help states in the region move toward strategic electrification are under discussion by various stakeholders. As envisioned, strategic electrification hopes to provide an integrated approach to deep decarbonization while lowering costs to customers and society. During this transition, there will be a seasonal shift in peak demand for electricity from summer to winter, which will necessitate further development of utility programs for winter demand. Reducing space heating load through efficiency, including deep energy retrofits in existing buildings and construction of zero energy homes, is a complementary strategy to strategic electrification in buildings.
Smart Homes and Building Benchmarking are Gateways to Energy Efficiency Savings – Heads Up for Evaluators
Two recent NEEP briefs make a compelling case for smart homes and for building benchmarking as gateways to energy efficiency savings. These are The Smart Energy Home and Cross-Promotional Opportunities and The Smart Home Interface: A Tool for Comprehensive Residential Energy Efficiency. Currently, stakeholders are pursuing both strategies in the residential sector, but these efforts are managed separately. The briefs make a case for cross-promotion of these strategies to optimize and leverage savings overall. The briefs provide market insights about similarities and differences between customers who adopt these strategies and their motivations. We are sharing these both to inform program administrators and as a heads up to evaluators that it would be good to think in advance about issues that may be raised for evaluation of these efforts. Is there an association between smart thermostats and free-ridership or spillover to savings from other programs? To what extent are non-energy benefits to customers significant? Can rapid feedback from smart thermostats help validate or update benchmarking?
Claire Miziolek recently facilitated a public webinar on these resources.
Additional Forum Updates
Just Released January 2018: ENERGY STAR® Retail Products Platform (RPP): Conditions and Considerations in Evaluating Market Transformation Programs and Evaluation Guidance for RPP. See the publication.
Under development: The sponsors of the Mid-Atlantic TRM will be reviewing the proposal for the 2018 update and likely kicking it off in first quarter 2018.
New DOE Residential EM&V Resource: The Better Buildings Residential Network has created a new Evaluation Toolkit which aims to help residential energy efficiency programs evaluate their efforts and incorporate lessons learned on the go, rather than after a program ends. The toolkit provides practical guidance and resources to conduct targeted reviews and make adjustments at various points in the lifecycle of a program and its offerings, in a continuous cycle of planning and improvement.
In the works for 2018: NEEP is gearing up to launch a new offering: Advanced Efficiency Leadership Forums in four topical areas: EM&V, market solutions, communities and buildings, and strategic electrification. The purpose of these topical forums is to assist the greater Northeast region to meet its climate change goals by bringing “coalitions of the willing” together to share best practices, learn new ideas, increase the impact of their work, and provide input on needed research and projects that NEEP and other stakeholders and partners might undertake. NEEP’s deputy director, Denise Rouleau, will be overseeing this effort across the organization and specific forums will be organized by NEEP directors.
Mark Your Calendar
Upcoming Forum, NEEP, and other webinars and meetings of potential interest
- AESP National Conference: February 19-22, 2018, New Orleans
- NEEP Regional R&D Connector Workshop: March 1, 2018, New York
- Home Performance Coalition National Conference: April 23-26, 2018, Philadelphia