Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “energy efficiency programs”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 91 records · Page 5
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2018

The United States Federal Energy Management Program lighting energy efficiency 2017 update and impacts

Lighting consumes a great deal of electrical energy in buildings, and the U.S. federal government is the largest single energy consumer in the United States. Therefore, the way that the U.S. federal government manages its lighting energy use is of great importance. One important way that energy use is managed is through Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) energy efficiency requirements. However, there is not much literature on how these requirements are set and how to value the resulting savings. This paper documents the methodology used to develop these for the 2017 FEMP lighting update. A methodology for calculating the total benefits is presented that goes beyond site energy saved, and includes full fuel cycle energy savings, energy cost savings, emissions offset and monetized emissions costs. The results show total benefits of $33 million USD including 475 kilotons of carbon dioxide (CO2) offset under the low compliance scenario, $104 million USD including 1494 kilotons of CO2 offset under the medium compliance scenario, and $217 million USD including 3124 kilotons of CO2 offset under the high compliance scenario.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2011

Developing State and National Evaluation Infrastructures- Guidance for the Challenges and Opportunities of EM&V

Evaluating the impacts and effectiveness of energy efficiency programs is likely to become increasingly important for state policymakers and program administrators given legislative mandates and regulatory goals and increasing reliance on energy efficiency as a resource. In this paper, we summarize three activities that the authors have conducted that highlight the expanded role of evaluation, measurement and verification (EM&V): a study that identified and analyzed challenges in improving and scaling up EM&V activities; a scoping study that identified issues involved in developing a national efficiency EM&V standard; and lessons learned from providing technical assistance on EM&V issues to states that are ramping up energy efficiency programs. The lessons learned are summarized in 13 EM&V issues that policy makers should address in each jurisdiction and which are listed and briefly described. The paper also discusses how improving the effectiveness and reliability of EM&V will require additional capacity building, better access to existing EM&V resources, new methods to address emerging issues and technologies, and perhaps foundational documents and approaches to improving the credibility and cross jurisdictional comparability of efficiency investments. Two of the potential foundational documents discussed are a national EM&V standard or resource guide and regional deemed savings and algorithm databases.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2012

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.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2014

DOE Better Buildings Neighborhood Program, Energy Smart Colorado: Resort Communities Retrofit Program

Energy Smart Colorado is an energy efficiency program established in 2011 in the central mountain region of Colorado. The program was funded through a grant of $4.9 million, awarded in August 2010 by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Program. As primary grant recipient, Eagle County coordinated program activities, managed the budget, and reported results. Eagle County staff worked closely with local community education and outreach partner Eagle Valley Alliance for Sustainability (now Walking Mountains Science Center) to engage residents in the program. Sub-recipients Pitkin County and Gunnison County assigned local implementation of the program in their regions to their respective community efficiency organizations, Community Office for Resource Efficiency (CORE) in Pitkin County, and Office for Resource Efficiency (ORE) in Gunnison County. Utility partners contributed $166,600 to support Home Energy Assessments for their customers. Program staff opened Energy Resource Centers, engaged a network of qualified contractors, developed a work-flow, an enrollment website, a loan program, and a data management system to track results.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2022

Development and Validation of Algorithms That Analyze Communicating Thermostat Data to Identify Enclosure Retrofit Opportunities

Annual energy savings of up to $\$ 4$ to $\$ 5$ billion could be achieved nationwide through basic insulation and heating system retrofits of existing homes. However, current utility energy efficiency programs are costly and challenging to scale. Customer acquisition occurs primarily through energy bill mailers, mass media, and online advertising that lack specificity about home-specific retrofit opportunities, expected energy savings, and cost-effectiveness. Specific retrofit opportunities are identified via on-site home energy assessments (HEAs) that are inconvenient to homeowners, expensive, and of variable accuracy. We developed computational algorithms that automatically analyze communicating thermostat (CT) heating data that could be used to increase the customer uptake of insulation and air sealing energy conservation measures (ECMs) by identifying homes with the most significant retrofit opportunities, estimating post-retrofit energy savings, and formulating home-specific outreach. The algorithms are based on an extended second-order grey-box model that characterizes a building’s thermal response using lumped elements, coupled with an empirical model of infiltration that accounts for both wind and stack effects. The basic parameters of the model correspond to actual physical parameters of the home, i.e., the home’s overall R-value of and the building envelope ACH50. Unlike the conventional approach, which estimates model parameters based on the best fit to the observed time-dependent room temperature, our approach derives correlations between the daily heating system runtime and temperature difference (indoor-outdoor) that are more robust to data quality issues in real-world applications. We also used HEA data for algorithm development and validation. With the help of our utility partners, Eversource and National Grid, we obtained data sets for hundreds of Massachusetts homes. For each home, these data sets included three sets of information anonymized by the utility: (1) CT data (HVAC runtime, room temperature, and, for some vendors, outdoor temperature and wind speed) collected by the CT vendor (one of three) over a heating season, (2) HEA report performed by the HEA vendor (same vendor for all homes), (3) Monthly utility gas bills coincident with the CT data (3 to 24 per home, depending on availability). For some homes, we also obtained blower-door test results. Initially, we applied the algorithms developed to homes with a single CT and then extended them to homes with two CTs by using an equivalent home approach. Finally, we developed algorithms for prediction of energy savings and a methodology of comparing our predictions with those generated by HEAs. The main technical results indicate that we can reliably identify homes with insulation and/or air sealing retrofit opportunities and provide accurate savings predictions. Our hypothesis is that the algorithms could be applied to utility energy efficiency programs to identify homes that could realize significant energy savings from insulation and/or air sealing retrofits. This information could then be used to reach out to those homes with highly customized outreach, thereby delivering increased program energy savings and cost-effectiveness. This would: Significantly increase the uptake rate of on-site HEAs, and Significantly increase the fraction of HEAs resulting in ECM implementation. To test these hypotheses, we designed and conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT). The RCT results suggest that personal messaging leads to a two- to five-fold increase in the HEA uptake rate.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2017

Chapter 11: Sample Design Cross-Cutting Protocol. The Uniform Methods Project: Methods for Determining Energy Efficiency Savings for Specific Measures

Evaluating an energy efficiency program requires assessing the total energy and demand saved through all of the energy efficiency measures provided by the program. For large programs, the direct assessment of savings for each participant would be cost-prohibitive. Even if a program is small enough that a full census could be managed, such an undertaking would almost always be an inefficient use of evaluation resources. The bulk of this chapter describes methods for minimizing and quantifying sampling error. Measurement error and regression error are discussed in various contexts in other chapters.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2017

The International Database of Efficient Appliances (IDEA): A new tool to support appliance energy-efficiency deployment

Appliance energy-efficiency programs are a central component of many countries’ energy-policy portfolios. A major barrier to optimal implementation of these programs is lack of data to determine market baselines, assess the potential for cost-effective energy savings, and track markets over time to evaluate and verify program impacts. To address this gap, we have developed the International Database of Efficient Appliances (IDEA), a suite of software tools that automatically gathers data that is currently dispersed across various online sources and compiles it into a unified repository of information on efficiency, price, and features for a diversity of appliances and devices in markets around the world. In this article we describe the framework and functionality of IDEA, and we demonstrate its power as a resource for research and policy development related to appliance energy efficiency. Using IDEA data for refrigerators in China and India, we assess the potential for cost-effective energy savings within each market by computing robust indicators that can also be easily compared across different appliances and markets. We find that significant cost-effective savings are available on both markets. We discuss implications for the development of future energy-efficiency deployment programs.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2021

Building Performance Database API (BPD API) v2.1

The Building Performance Database (BPD) is the largest publicly-available source of measured energy performance data for buildings in the United States. It contains information about the building's energy use, location, and physical and operational characteristics. The BPD can be used by building owners, operators, architects and engineers to compare a building's energy efficiency against customized peer groups, identify energy efficiency opportunities, and set energy efficiency targets. It can also be used by energy efficiency program implementers and policymakers to analyze energy efficiency features and trends in the building stock. The BPD compiles data from various data sources, converts it into a standard format, cleanses and quality checks the data, and provides users with access to the data in a way that maintains anonymity for data providers. This software is the database and the Application Programming Interface (API). Users can utilize the BPD's data to develop their own applications using the API. Version 2.1 included a major update for multiple years of data and refactoring of code for faster queries.

Mathew, Paul↗
DOE OSTI2015

Technology inventory: energy efficiency measures for residential, commercial, and industrial sectors in the United States

Energy efficiency is expected to continue to be one of main levers for governments to address the energy and climate crisis. While a diverse mix of energy efficiency programs has been regarded as an important part of governmental actions, an energy efficiency policy or program needs to identify and assess eligible savings measures, i.e., specific technologies or practices, for designing key features, e.g., target type, target stringency, covered load, and cost recovery. This report briefly discusses U.S. energy efficiency policies and programs, explores publicly available resources of energy efficiency measures for residential, commercial, and industrial sectors in the U.S., and describes how to compile key measures and characteristics into an integrated spreadsheet database. The database in the initial version offers, for more than 1,200 measures, efficiency or improvement potential, technical notes, costs at a given year, where applicable. Energy efficiency measures compiled here could play an important role in determining savings targets and target stringency under a potential energy efficiency policy such as an energy efficiency resource standard in Korea, and offer significant opportunities for energy efficiency improvement.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2012

White Paper on Energy Efficiency Status of Energy-Using Products in China (2012)

2011 is the first year of the 12th Five-Year Plan and, as such, it is a crucial year to push forward the work of energy conservation and emissions reduction. Important large-scale energy conservation policies issued in 2011 include Outline of the 12th Five-year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of The People’s Republic of China (the “Plan”) and Notice of the State Council on Issuing the Comprehensive Work Proposal for Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction during the 12th Five-Year Plan Period (GF (2011) No. 26) (the “Proposal”). These two policies have established strategic objectives for energy conservation during the 12th Five-Year Plan in China, and they have also identified the key tasks and direction of energy efficiency programs for energy-using products.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2011

NYSERDA's Green Jobs-Green New York Program: Extending Energy Efficiency Financing To Underserved Households

The New York legislature passed the Green Jobs-Green New York (GJGNY) Act in 2009. Administered by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), GJGNY programs provide New Yorkers with access to free or low-cost energy assessments,1 energy upgrade services,2 low-cost financing, and training for various 'green-collar' careers. Launched in November 2010, GJGNY's residential initiative is notable for its use of novel underwriting criteria to expand access to energy efficiency financing for households seeking to participate in New York's Home Performance with Energy Star (HPwES) program.3 The GJGNY financing program is a valuable test of whether alternatives to credit scores can be used to responsibly expand credit opportunities for households that do not qualify for traditional lending products and, in doing so, enable more households to make energy efficiency upgrades.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2019

The OpenEfficiency Initiative: Piloting an open source solution to overcome market barriers to commercial energy savings

The OpenEfficiency Initiative supported the deployment of federal energy efficiency tools and data standards into energy efficiency programs operated by utilities and local governments, with the goal of reducing the cost and improving the savings performance of whole buildings programs. Over more than three years, the effort supported a range of pilots testing the integration of these tools into a range of energy efficiency program types. The effort also produced a set of open source tools that can be used to support program management.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2018

Meeting Growing Energy Efficiency Challenges by Supporting the Program Administrator Industry

The Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE) received #DE-EE0006367 to assist local energy efficiency programs to work together to meet the growing energy efficiency challenges by supporting the program administrator industry covering the period August 1, 2014 through December 31, 2017, amendments 1-3 inclusive. CEE is a 501c (3) organization promoting voluntary alignment of local, ratepayer-funded energy efficiency programs to increase the energy savings and environmental benefits from their combined efforts. These efficiency programs are typically mandated by state regulatory or legislative bodies and administered by electric and gas utilities or designated state agencies. More than 100 program administrator organizations, representing efforts in 40 states, participated as US members in CEE. In addition, CEE's membership also includes 8 program administrator organizations from 5 Canadian provinces.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2012

Survey of Whole House Programs in Midwestern Climates

Existing single family whole home energy efficiency programs in cold weather climates, focused on the Midwest, were analyzed in detail to understand program design, including requirements, processes, incentives and outcomes, focusing on savings and participation. The report presents information about specific programs, aggregated program trends and observations, and recommendations for futurecold weather climate whole home program design and implementation. This study makes several recommendations to whole home program designers and implementers on improving the cost-effectiveness and reach of whole home programs.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2014

Missouri Agricultural Energy Saving Team-A Revolutionary Opportunity (MAESTRO)

The Missouri Agricultural Energy Saving Team-A Revolutionary Opportunity (MAESTRO) program brought together a team of representatives from government, academia, and private industry to enhance the availability of energy efficiency services for small livestock producers in the State of Missouri. The Missouri Department of Agriculture (MDA) managed the project via a subcontract with the University of Missouri (MU), College of Agriculture Food and Natural Resources, MU Extension, the MU College of Human Environmental Sciences, the MU College of Engineering, and the Missouri Agricultural and Small Business Development Authority (MASBDA). MU teamed with EnSave, Inc, a nationally-recognized expert in agricultural energy efficiency to assist with marketing, outreach, provision of farm energy audits and customer service. MU also teamed with independent home contractors to facilitate energy audits of the farm buildings and homes of these livestock producers. The goals of the project were to: (1) improve the environment by reducing fossil fuel emissions and reducing the total energy used on small animal farms; (2) stimulate the economy of local and regional communities by creating or retaining jobs; and (3) improve the profitability of Missouri livestock producers by reducing their energy expenditures. Historically, Missouri scientists/engineers conducted programs on energy use in agriculture, such as in equipment, grain handling and tillage practices. The MAESTRO program was the first to focus strictly on energy efficiency associated with livestock production systems in Missouri and to investigate the applicability and potential of addressing energy efficiency in animal production from a building efficiency perspective. A. Project Objectives The goal of the MAESTRO program was to strengthen the financial viability and environmental soundness of Missouri's small animal farms by helping them implement energy efficient technologies for the production facility, farm buildings, and the homes on these farms. The expected measurable outcomes of the project were to improve the environment and stimulate the economy by: • Reducing annual fossil fuel emissions by 1,942 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, reducing the total annual energy use on at least 323 small animal farms and 100 farm homes by at least 8,000 kWh and 2,343 therms per farm. • Stimulating the economy by creating or retaining at least 69 jobs, and saving small animal farmers an average of $2,071 per farm in annual energy expenditures. B. Project Scope The MAESTRO team chose the target population of small farms because while all agriculture is traditionally underserved in energy efficiency programs, small farms were particularly underserved because they lack the financial resources and access to energy efficiency technologies that larger farms deploy. The MAESTRO team reasoned that energy conservation, financial and educational programs developed while serving the agricultural community could serve as a national model for other states and their agricultural sectors. The target population was approximately 2,365 small animal farm operations in Missouri, specifically those farms that were not by definition a confined animal feeding operation (CAFO). The program was designed to create jobs by training Missouri contractors and Missouri University Extension staff how to conduct farm audits. The local economy would be stimulated by an increase in construction activity and an increasing demand for energy efficient farm equipment. Additionally, the energy savings were deemed critical in keeping Missouri farms in business. This project leveraged funds using a combination of funds from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources’ Missouri Energy Center and its Soil and Water Conservation Program, from the state's Linked Deposits, MASBDA's agricultural loan guarantee programs, and through the in-kind contribution of faculty and staff time to the project from these agencies and MU. Several hundred Missouri livestock producers were contacted during the MAESTRO project. Of the livestock producers, 254 invited the team to conduct a farm energy assessment which complied with ASABE 612. A total of 147 livestock farm upgrades were implemented, representing 57.5 percent of the farms for which a farm energy assessment was completed. This represented a statewide average annual savings of 1,088,324 kWh and 75,516 therms. The team also reviewed the condition of the livestock producer’s home(s). A total of 106 home energy assessments were completed and 48 individual homes implemented their recommended upgrades, representing 45 percent of the farm homes for which an energy assessment was completed. This represented a statewide average annual savings of 323,029 kWh, and 769.4 therms. More of these farmers likely would have updated their homes but the funding to incentivize them fell short. In spite of the shortfall in incentive funds, some farmers still updated their homes as they saw the value in making these changes to their home.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2022

Bay Area Regional Energy: Network Integrated Commercial Retrofits (BRICR) Project. Final Report

The BRICR project applied large-scale building energy modeling concepts with the aim of reducing the cost of energy efficiency targeting, design, and project development, and measurement of energy savings for energy efficiency programs implemented by local governments that serve small and medium commercial buildings (SMB). The project leveraged the services and resources of existing local government energy programs serving disadvantaged and hard-to-reach SMB customers. In contrast to programs run by utilities, local government programs generally do not have direct access to energy billing records for an entire class of customers in a geographic area, which prior research demonstrated useful for large-scale building energy model baseline development and calibration. , However, local governments are rich in public records that offer important clues about physical attributes and uses that, along with behavior, determine energy use. Relying only on public records, BRICR demonstrated development of credible baseline energy models for 3,792 office, retail, and hotel buildings. Publicly disclosed annual energy use data from a local energy benchmarking program and anonymized data from the Building Performance Database, the nation’s largest dataset about energy-related characteristics of buildings, were utilized to validate and calibrate energy models via an innovative method comparing distributions of energy intensity by fuel type for portfolios of buildings of similar size, vintage, and use. Portfolio calibration does not provide certainty that an energy model fits an individual building; the method is useful when billing data is not accessible – a common situation for researchers, energy service providers and ESCOs, local governments, and any party other than a utility. A software component was developed, the BRICR gem, which automates simulation when relevant data is added or edited by the user to a file saved in the standardized BuildingSync XML schema for energy audit data. The component was demonstrated as a simplified means to generate a mass of energy models corresponding to public records containing basic attributes such as building scale, location, use, year built, and aspect ratio in combination with building energy code prototype data corresponding to use and vintage. The component was also demonstrated as a simplified means to automate energy simulation when attributes are revised; the intention was to enable iterative improvement of the baseline model and energy savings estimates for common energy conservation measures as users revise relevant attributes based on their observations. In the context of institutional change and uncertainty for the participating local government energy programs, 13 whole building retrofits were completed. Impacts were measured by applying the CalTRACK2.0 methods to standardize measurement of normalized metered energy consumption. The GRIDMeter methods of stratified sampling and individual load shape analysis were applied to adjust for impacts of the effect of COVID-19 on retrofitted buildings in the context of all local buildings of similar size and use. Excluding impacts of the pandemic, retrofitted buildings demonstrated between 1.6% and 25.1% reduction in energy use. The project contributed use cases and feedback that helped inform evolution of the software tools and data formats that were combined for the first time in the BRICR project.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗