Evaluating Energy-Efficiency Programs: A Personal View of Progress and Potential.

摘要

Evaluation of energy-efficiency programs has come of age. Substantial progress has been made during the past decade in the development and application of improved methods to measure the cost and performance of such programs. These developments include: 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 and for purposes beyond evaluation. 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. 42 refs., 2 figs., 4 tabs.