Energy Efficiency

With or without a state mandate, investing in Energy Efficiency makes sense - but it doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg! PSE can help your service territory become more energy efficient, providing both economic and environmental benefits that can avert potentially expensive regulatory intervention. Additionally, PSE can help your utility implement revenue decoupling, thus helping you avoid the erosion of margins due to Energy Efficiency programs. Being a good corporate citizen and doing it proactively and cost effectively with PSE as your Energy Efficiency partner has never been easier!

Applications

• Cost/Benefit of programs
• Impact evaluation/M&V
• Program design
• Marketing of energy efficiency programs
• Revenue decoupling, lost revenue and/or cost recovery mechanisms
• Market potential studies (technical, economic, achievable)

There is increasing interest in Energy Efficiency (EE) programs across the utility industry. The majority of this interest is driven by regulatory mandates and public welfare concerns, but increasingly, utilities find it a valuable business solution. Currently, Power System Engineering, Inc. (PSE) is assisting its clients in developing business cases that prove this financial case to their stakeholders including regulators, consumer advocacy groups, etc. PSE’s competitive advantage in this area lies in its ability to extrapolate the results from these studies and apply them in a multitude of utility disciplines, including but not limited to, integrated resource planning, technology selection, load forecasting, operations dispatch, distribution and transmission planning, etc.

PSE is assisting various G&Ts and their members with potential economic evaluations of EE programs including appliance rebate incentives, weatherization incentives, and other consumer incentive programs.  The following cost-benefit tests are used for each of the key stakeholders, including the G&Ts, their members, program participants, and non-participants:

• Societal and total resource tests to establish public interest positions.
• Utility cost tests separated between the G&T and member positions.
• Participant and non-participant tests.
• Rate impact tests.

Typical challenges in such studies include:

• Comparison of load building and conservation as Demand-Side Management (DSM) goals.
• The linkage of incentives offered to market penetration achieved.
• Customer choice as the basis for estimating kW and kWh impacts.
• Avoided cost definitions and forecasts.
• Program design to provide positive net benefits to all stakeholders.
• Monitoring and verification.

PSE’s experience with real-world EE programs can help in the EE program decision process by answering:

• What programs to offer
• Who to offer the programs to
• When to begin or end an EE program
• How extensive an offering should be
• What data is needed to assess and refine each EE program

In addition, PSE also offers Monitoring and Verification (M&V) services for established EE programs. This third-party verification allows impact assessments for each program.

PSE’s service offerings include:

• EE potential studies
• Monitoring & verification
• EE appliance surveys
• Optimization of EE programs
• Customer participation surveys