Program Evaluation

Getting Started

Several guides are available that serve as primers on the basic principles of evaluation and why evaluating program performance is important. Those of you who are new to energy efficiency or new to evaluation should be familiar with these guides, in order to understand how your programs will be evaluated, while program managers that are tasked with planning for/ managing evaluations and determining the scope and scale of efforts should spend time understanding the pros and cons of the different approaches and seek further information on what peer utilities are doing.

Crunching Numbers

Those actually conducting evaluations will want to refer to the protocol documents and datasets, which offer examples of measure-specific evaluation requirements that are in use, as well as deemed savings values or simplified measurement and verification (M&V) approaches that are widely accepted for common energy efficiency measures.

Sharing Best Practices

No doubt as you delve into this information, you’ll quickly notice that there are a number of efforts underway to define best practices and encourage the use of common protocols. The issues identified in the EM&V Buzz section are recommended reading for all; however experienced evaluators should follow these developments closely and in the case of regional and national initiatives contact stakeholders so that your utility's experiences and concerns become part of the debate.