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   EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

PG&E first offered its Commercial New Construction program in May 1990 in an effort to encourage the design and construction of new nonresidential buildings that exceed the California Energy Commission’s Title 24 standards by 10% or more. (Note that under the California energy code major remodels qualify as "new" construction.) The program is designed to supplement Title 24 standards, increase market acceptance of advanced energy-efficient building technologies and materials, and prevent lost opportunities in new building construction. PG&E provides information assistance to help builders, architects, engineers, and developers early in the planning and design stages of new commercial buildings to maximize the level of achievable savings. In addition, PG&E provides financial incentives to program participants. Rebates of up to 100% of the incremental cost for demonstrated improvements over Title 24 standards are available in the following building categories: lighting, high performance glazing with daylighting, motors and adjustable speed drives, cooling, and energy-efficient refrigeration.

Given the time lag between building design and actual construction, savings are presented each year in terms of "actual" for which rebates are paid, and "committed." In 1991, the program’s first full year, PG&E attributed 6.8 MW in actual demand savings and 19.4 MW in committed demand savings to the Commercial New Construction program. Actual energy savings in 1991 were 24.3 GWh and committed energy savings were 72.3 GWh. Incentive payments totalling $1,460,900 were paid out in 1991, while committed payments topped $6 million.

In July of 1992, the California energy code was revised and clarified and allows for prescriptive and performance-based methods of compliance. To match the new energy code requirements, PG&E introduced three new program tracks that parallel the new code compliance requirements and which offer cash incentives for exceeding Title 24 efficiency standards for new construction. The new programs represent an evolution of the PG&E’s original Large and Small Commercial New Construction Incentive Programs which started in 1990. Two of the three new programs tracks are prescriptive methods, the "Prescriptive Express Program" and "Prescriptive Plus", both of which require installation of specific energy-efficient technologies. The third track is a performance method called the "Performance by Design Program", and requires using California Energy Commission computer modeling to establish an allowed energy budget for a new building from which PG&E can determine the incentive appropriate for marginal improvements above the California Energy Code.

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   EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Northeast Utilities’ Energy Action Program (EAP) offers incentives to large commercial and industrial customers who retrofit existing facilities with energy-efficient equipment in the service territories of both Connecticut Light & Power and Western Massachusetts Electric Company. Non-residential customers whose monthly demand exceeds 250 kW, facilities such as schools and institutional buildings, hospitals, offices, commercial buildings, colleges and universities, and industrial facilities are eligible for the program. EAP’s incentives stimulate lighting retrofits, HVAC improvements, motor retrofits, and the installation of energy management systems. Through EAP, the payback period for retrofit projects is reduced to one to three years.

The focus of EAP is total energy management, including industrial process improvements. Manufacturing measures eligible for incentives from EAP include motors, compressors, and process controls, and are eligible for incentives that allow for a one-year payback. Comfort measures (such as chillers, condensers, evaporators, or any other equipment involved in electric cooling systems) and nonmanufacturing measures (such as lighting and domestic hot water heating equipment) are eligible for incentives that bring the project cost down to a three-year payback, with the maximum percentage of the installed cost of 50%.

The EAP target market is comprised of approximately 1,700 commercial customers and 1,000 industrial customers. With 1,000 EAP participants to date, or 37% of the target group, EAP is well along in meeting its goals for participation. (Furthermore, of those participants who install ECMs, about 90% of the recommended measures are actually installed.) In its present form, EAP will have reached the entire target market within the next few years. However, as technologies and costs change, the program is expected to be revised to accommodate such changes, potentially making additional retrofit opportunities cost-effective.

EAP was initiated in 1988 and has generated total annual energy savings of 86.5 GWh and summer demand savings of 13.2 MW in the four-year period 1988 to 1992. Approximately 113 projects have been completed as of the end of 1992, with another 363 underway.

NU has overcome institutional barriers to energy efficiency in a customer class whose energy bills constitute only a small fraction of total costs. Similar barriers are likely to exist throughout North America, and can be effectively overcome with programs similar to EAP.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

EPA’s Green Lights program was officially launched on January 16, 1991 to prevent pollution by encouraging organizations to use energy-efficient lighting technologies in their offices, factories, stores, and warehouses. The Green Lights program offers a substantial opportunity to organizations to prevent pollution and to do so at a profit. If energy-efficient lighting were used wherever profitable, the nation’s demand for electricity would be cut by more than 10%, leading to 4% to 7% reductions in total emissions of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides. In terms of carbon dioxide, EPA finds that this reduction in emissions would be the equivalent of removing 44 million cars from the road!

The Green Lights program is strictly voluntary. Upon becoming a participant in the Green Lights program, the involved organization signs a Memorandum of Understanding with EPA. Then the participant must survey the lighting in all of its U.S. facilities and install energy-efficient lighting systems in 90% of their facilities nationwide over a five-year period, where it is profitable and lighting quality is maintained or improved. EPA, in turn, assists the participating organization throughout the retrofit process, providing lists of manufacturers, lighting management companies, and utilities, (all considered "Allies") who produce lighting products and provide efficient lighting services. EPA also provides participants with a computer software program called the Decision Support System that allows corporations to survey lighting systems in their facilities, assess their options, and select the best energy-efficient lighting upgrades which maximize energy savings and are profitable.

By October 31, 1992, 668 organizations had signed Memoranda of Understanding with EPA. These program participants own or lease 3 billion square feet of facility space, which is almost 4% of the national total, equivalent to all of the office space in New York, Chicago, Washington, Los Angeles, and Houston combined!

The Green Lights Program operated in FY 1991 with only 2 full-time staff members and a budget of $1.4 million. In 1992 the program grew, starting the fiscal year with a full-time staff of 3 and finishing the year with a staff of 10. The FY 1992 budget was almost $3 million, providing for support such as the Hotline service, recruiting support, technical analysis, and software creation. These expenses have leveraged tremendous savings. Completed Green Lights upgrades as of October 31, 1992 account for annual energy savings of 102.1 GWh and connected load electricity savings of 35.5 MW. Participants’ annual electric bills have been reduced by almost $7 million as the average electricity reduction for lighting for Green Lights participants was 52%. These results only reflect the first year accomplishments of participants who joined through October 1991. Energy savings will grow rapidly as more participants send in their first anniversary report and especially as participants reach their second through fifth anniversaries.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The New England Electric System’s (NEES) Residential Electric Space Heat program (RESH) is a direct installation program that provides energy efficiency improvement measures and information at no cost or low cost to residential customers with electric space heat. Of NEES’s 1.1 million residential accounts served by three retail companies, just 5% are moderate and high-use electric heat customers. The RESH program was designed to capture energy savings for these customers who live in one to four-family buildings.

The system-wide program’s design and implementation was built on experience gained from a demonstration project in Northhampton, Massachusetts in which 213 electric space heat customers with annual usage above 10,000 kWh were served with efficiency measures in 1988 and 1989. The full-scale implementation of RESH began in the fall of 1990, targeting high-use electric space heat customers.[R#6]

RESH is administered by NEES staff, who perform program planning, evaluation, and daily oversight, while contracted energy service companies deliver the program to customers. These companies promote the program, do followup telemarketing, install the measures, and are responsible for one-on-one customer relations. Approximately 96% of the program budget flows to the contractors for labor and supplies.

During 1991, 3,177 customers participated in RESH resulting in annual energy savings of 5,597 MWh, or 1,762 kWh per customer, about 5% of the average homes’ electricity use. By the end of 1992, NEES anticipates that it will have reached 13% of the target market. The program is planned to run through the year 2000; at that point NEES hopes to have served 67% of the Massachusetts market, 65% of the Rhode Island market, and 69% of the New Hampshire market.[R#7,9]

NEES has spent an average of $887 per customer in implementing the program in 1991. There is no spending limit per household, and NEES will install whatever cost-effective measures are appropriate, as determined by a Technical Assessment. At the time of the technical assesment, contractors provide energy-efficiency information (including information regarding appliances), compact flourescents are installed, blower door tests are performed, air sealing measures are performed, and water heating efficiency improvements are made. If cost effective, contractors return to install hardwired efficient lighting fixtures; attic, basement and wall insulation; and window and door improvements.

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