Additional Resources for Evaluation, Measurement, and Verification

In recent years, policymakers, regulators, and utilities have increasingly focused on energy efficiency, resulting in both more innovative policies and programs and a significant ramp-up in energy efficiency investments. With increased resources comes increased scrutiny, which translates into a greater need to demonstrate that taxpayer and utility ratepayer dollars are being used wisely. New types of programs and policies, including energy-efficient resource standards (EERS), energy saving credits, performance based compensation, and carbon offsets, present new technical challenges related to evaluation, measurement, and verification (EM&V) of energy savings. EM&V protocols, therefore, must be a key component of any successful energy efficiency program or policy.

The Alliance believes that to enhance the credibility and reliability of EE program savings measurement, federal and state governments, along with various stakeholders, should: 1) institute processes for EM&V design and review that incite transparent and thorough debate over EM&V methods, data and assumptions; 2) improve EM&V methods, data and assumptions; 3) increase consistency of methods and assumptions between regions and program types, 4) assure evaluation professional competency and integrity and 5) manage stakeholder expectations.

The Alliance actively participates in EM&V activities of the State Energy Efficiency (SEE) Action Network (formerly National Action Plan for Energy Efficiency), North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB), Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE) Evaluation Committee, and other fora.

Alliance Resources

• The EM&V Challenge: Accurately Measuring Savings from Energy-Efficiency Policies and Programs, an overview of EM&V issues
• Scaling-Up Energy Efficiency Programs: The Measurement Challenge, a report by Alliance staff on issues and challenges facing EM&V for energy efficiency programs

Outside resources

• The EPA and DOE-supported SEE Action Network (formerly NAPEE) is a federally-facilitated project for state and local-level energy efficiency efforts; they have been deeply involved in EM&V issues:
  • EM&V workgroup
  • NAPEE Model Energy Efficiency Program Impact Evaluation Guide (pdf).
  • Guidelines for the Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting, Verification, and Certification of Energy-Efficiency Projects for Climate Change Mitigation, LBNL, Environmental Energy Technologies Division.
  • National Energy Efficiency Evaluation, Measurement and Verification (EM&V) Standard: Scoping Study of Issues and Implementation Requirements (pdf)
  • Scoping Study to Evaluate Feasibility of National Databases for EM&V Documents and Measure Savings (pdf)
  • EM&V Webinar Series
• The Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnership's (NEEP) EM&V Forum
  supports the development of common EM&V protocols for eleven states in the Northeast US.
  • Forum Products and Guidelines
  • Glossary of EM&V Terms (pdf)
  • NEEP, The Need for and Approaches to Developing Common Protocols to Measure, Verify and Report Energy Efficiency Savings in the Northeast, January 2006 (pdf, 925KB)
• Efficiency Valuation Organization (EVO) oversees the International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol (IPMVP) and, in cooperation with the Association of Energy Engineers, has established the Certified Measurement and Verification Professional (CMVP) program.
• The NAESB DSM/EE Subcommittee has established workgroups to address EM&V topics for demand response and energy efficiency
• Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) maintains a compilation of documents on FEMP-related M&V.
• The Consortium for Energy Efficiency promotes research into evaluation issues through its Evaluation and Market Research Coordination
  project.
  • Market Assessment and Program Evaluation Clearinghouse
  • Evaluation Principles
• The Regional Technical Forum, hosted by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, is developing common deemed savings and M&V protocols for the Pacific Northwest US.