Library: Commercial & Industrial, Energy Savings, 16011

This report presents the results of an impact evaluation of Efficiency Maine Trust’s (EMT’s) Commercial Projects Grant Program for the 2010-2011 time period. The program provides competitive matching grants for custom electric and fossil fuel energy efficiency and renewable energy projects. The program was implemented in response to the funding opportunities made available from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, State Energy Program (ARRA-SEP). Funding of up to $50,000 per project was awarded through a competitive review and selection process conducted by EMT. The program disbursed $1.6 million through December 31, 2011 and is scheduled to be discontinued effective April 30, 2012.

Navigant Consulting, Inc. (Navigant) and Turner Building Science were selected by EMT to conduct an impact evaluation of the program results to date. Navigant’s scope of work focused on quantifying and verifying the energy savings and greenhouse gas reductions achieved by the program. This work explicitly did not include any process evaluation objectives. Specific research objectives included:

Measure and verify energy savings, including:

Site and source1 energy savings and greenhouse gas reductions for all projects
Fossil fuel savings, including fuel oil savings
Electric demand savings
Renewable capacity generation for renewable projects
Analyzing the attribution of impacts to the SEP/ARRA-funded grants to Commercial Projects and impacts on job creation
Analyzing the cost effectiveness of the individual projects and program overall according to the Maine TRC test and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) SEP Recovery Act benefit/cost test.

Navigant Consulting was selected to conduct an evaluation of the IEI pilot to gain feedback from participants on their IEI participation. The evaluation objectives for the IEI pilot are to:

• Determine what motivated the firms to participate;
• Determine what expectations the firms had from the initiative and what goals they hoped to achieve;
• Assess how the initiative can be improved;
• Determine what elements of the IEI pilot the firms found the most valuable;
• Determine whether there are differences in the types of the organizations participating;
• Determine whether there are industry or organizational differences that drive success;
• Determine what classifications of individual participated from each organization;
• Determine whether IEI has the data collection processes in place to provide the basis to assess if the initiative is progressing towards and reaching its goals;
• Recommend best methods for mainstreaming the pilot into the PE Program.

The main evaluation objectives for the Kaizen Blitz were to answer the following questions:

What motivates customers to improve their efficiency and to maintain a higher level of efficient operation over time?
Are the incentive levels adequate, low, or high? What were the keys to success?
If a customer did not perform, why not?
Did Energy Management software and support add value to the Kaizen Blitz process? Does it help track and maintain savings?
Does the customer see the value? Does it help project and program evaluation?
Are the savings levels sufficient to carry the added cost of services? Do the savings persist?
Are there improvements to customer/program relationships through collaborative implementation of operational changes?