2004 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings

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2004 ACEEE Informal Sessions Descriptions

Additional Informal Sessions may be organized on-site during the Summer Study. Visit the office in Surf and Sand to sign up for an Informal Session.

Session Synopsis - "The Future of the National Programmatic Best Practices Project"

Michael Rufo, Quantum Consulting, Inc.

Thursday, August 26
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM

This session will focus on issues associated with collecting, disseminating, and comparing information and data on energy efficiency programs. Hundreds of energy efficiency programs are operated throughout the U.S. with expenditures of roughly a billion dollars. However, only modest effort has gone into the development of methods and systems to synthesize approaches, outcomes, successes, and failures across programs. In the early to mid-1990s, several efforts were made to document and disseminate information on program characteristics, outcomes, and lessons learned. These efforts were initially successful but ultimately succumbed to budget shortfalls in the wake of the rapid decline in energy efficiency spending between 1993 and 1997. Recently, a new effort to systematically benchmark and synthesize energy efficiency programs has been undertaken through a Programmatic Best Practices study and planned website sponsored by the California PUC and investor-owned utilities. In this session, we will discuss a number of critically important issues associated with this effort and its future. Some of the possible issues to be covered include: Why benchmarking and knowledge transfer matter; How benchmarking and knowledge transfer efforts can be cost-effectively kept up to date; How new information technologies can facilitate this effort; The types of data and information that are most valuable to users; Data limitations to effective cross-jurisdictional benchmarking and how these might be mitigated; and the prospects for developing multi-organizational support for the future of this effort.

For more information, contact:

Michael Rufo
Quantum Consulting, Inc.
e-mail: mrufo@qcworld.com

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