Progress and Potential in Evaluating Energy Efficiency Programs

Evaluation of energy-efficiency programs has come of age. Substantial progress has been made during the past decade in the development of methods to measure the cost and performance of such programs. These developments inlcude: use of quasi-experimental designs; use of fuel- consumption data to measure energy savings; weather-normalization of fuel-consumption data; consideration of nonresponse bias, self-selection, take-back and free riders; evaluation of long-term program effects; integration of outcomes and process evaluations; and use of data from a variety of sources. Program evaluators will face new challenges during the 1990s, largely because the role of energy-efficiency programs will expand greatly. These challenges include: integration of evaluation results with forecasts of energy use; conversion of evaluation results into a form useful for program planning; and development of standardized methods to conduct evaluations and to report evaluation results.