The Brazilian Energy Efficiency Program : A Novel Methodology to Evaluate and Benchmarking Projects in Low-Income Communities

This study presents a methodology for evaluating energy efficiency projects carried out in low-income communities in the scope of the largest Brazilian Energy Efficiency Program, known as PEE. The methodology is based on a scoring system to ranking projects performance in six energy efficiency indicators, considering economic, technical, social and environmental spheres. The methodology is applied to evaluate 101 projects realized between 2008 and 2013 by electric utilities and the results show that less than 10% are characterized as being of excellence, which reveals much room for program improvement. This evaluation could be implemented annually by the Brazilian regulatory agency