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Evaluation of Home Energy Audit Tools

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Evaluation of Home Energy Audit Tools Center for Energy, Economic & Environmental Policy Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey 33 Livingston Avenue • Suite 190 • New Brunswick • New Jersey 08901-1958 732/932-5475, Ext. 720 • FAX: 732/932-0934 Evaluation of Home Energy Audit Tools Prepared by: The Center for Energy, Economic and Environmental Policy February 19, 2004 Table of Contents Executive Summary ............................................................................................................ 3 Background ......................................................................................................................... 8 Evaluation Description ...................................................................................................... 10 Review of Relevant Studies .............................................................................................. 11 Overview of Residential Home Energy Audit Tools ........................................................ 13 Home Energy Checkup ................................................................................................. 14 Home Energy Advisor .................................................................................................. 15 Home Energy Saver ...................................................................................................... 17 Home Analyzer ............................................................................................................. 20 Comparison of Audit Tools .............................................................................................. 22 Audit Tool Comparison Matrix ........................................................................................ 29 LBNL Report - Best Practices .......................................................................................... 30 Best Practices Matrix ........................................................................................................ 32 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 33 Appendix A ....................................................................................................................... 38 LBNL Report: Executive Summary .............................................................................. 38 Executive Summary In March of 2003, the staff of the Board of Public Utilities (“Board staff”) commenced a review of the overall administrative structure of the New Jersey Clean Energy Program and of the specific programs being administered by the utilities. In discussions with the utilities, Board staff raised concerns regarding the need to expend funds on a residential home audit program given the availability of free residential home energy audits through a number of vendors including the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In January of 2004, the Center for Energy, Economic and Environmental Policy (CEEEP) at Rutgers Bloustein School of Public Policy and Planning was engaged by the Board of Public Utilities (the “Board”) to perform an evaluation of residential home energy audit tools. The evaluation was conducted by CEEEP in three stages. The first stage was a review of relevant literature on the topic of residential energy audits and a review of similar evaluations performed by other entities. In the second stage of the evaluation we conducted a high level overview of four audit tools available on the Internet. The overview included a review of the audit tools to determine ease of use, energy usage outputs, energy saving recommendations, links to other useful sites and usefulness of any reports produced by the audit tool. In the third stage of the evaluation we prepared a comparison of the audit tools identified above. A report prepared by the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) discussed below notes that there exists hundreds of building energy software tools, both web- and disk-based. These tools exhibit considerable range in approach and creativity, with some being highly specialized and others able to consider the building as a whole. The LBNL comparison shows that such tools can employ many approaches and levels of detail. Some tools require a relatively small number of well-considered inputs while others ask a myriad of questions and still miss key issues. The following residential home energy audit tools were evaluated by CEEEP: 1. Home Energy Checkup; sponsored by the Alliance to Save Energy; 2. Home Energy Advisor; sponsored by the US EPA; 3. Home Energy Saver; sponsored by the US DOE and US EPA; and 4. Home Analyzer; sponsored by NEXUS and currently utilized by the New Jersey Clean Energy Program. This report includes an overview of each of the audit tools evaluated. The report also includes a comparison of the various attributes of each of the tools. Overview of the Audit Tools The Home Energy Checkup is a tool that is designed for educational purposes only. It is not designed to provide a homeowner with specific recommendations regarding potential energy saving measures but instead provides very generic information regarding ways to reduce energy usage. The other tools evaluated allow users to input information more specific to their homes and the recommendations are more tailored to the user’s home. The Home Energy Advisor is an easy to use tool that provides the user with recommendations regarding ways to save energy that are tailored to the specified home. It provides simplified results based on high level inputs regarding the home and its occupants. The audit requires the user to input minimal information specific to the home using instead default values specific to the area. The tool is linked to promoting the use of ENERGY STAR products with the majority of the recommendations being to consider ENERGY STAR products when replacing an existing product. The tool has links to several helpful pages that provided additional information to assist the user in evaluating the costs and savings associated with the energy saving recommendations. Like the Home Energy Advisor, the Home Energy Saver provides the user with recommendations regarding ways to save energy that are tailored to the specified home. It includes links to other sources of information to help users assess the costs and benefits of implementing the recommendations. The first two levels of detail offered by the Home Energy Saver were easy to use. The evaluator found the third level of detail difficult to use and it took significantly more time to complete than the other audit tools. The tool apparently utilizes the same default values and calculations as the Home Energy Advisor since both produced identical estimates of costs and savings for the first level of detail and similar estimates for the second level of detail. The Home Energy Saver produced some estimates of usage and savings that were questionable. The Home Analyzer is organized in such a manner that, with a small time investment, users can see results quickly, and need not complete an entire analysis to obtain meaningful answers. This is done by presenting the user with fourteen easy-to-answer questions that allows them to build a “profile” of their home. This process, which took the evaluator less than five minutes to complete, allows the user to then view a list of potential energy savings measures, which can be further refined by continuing the analysis. The user is quickly able to see how their home compares to other similar homes in the area. The four residential home energy audits evaluated by CEEEP are all useful tools that were designed for different purposes. The Home Energy Checkup was designed as a simple educational tool that is intended to provide the user with generic information regarding ways to save energy. It is not designed to provide users with information specific to their home. The Home Energy Advisor and the Home Energy Saver were both designed as tools to be used nationally. As such, they have limited ability to be modified to add features potentially desired by the New Jersey Clean Energy Program. CEEEP believes that the Home Analyzer audit tool currently utilized by the New Jersey Clean Energy Program has more depth and robustness than the other tools evaluated and that it offers several advantages over the other tools assessed. First, the Home Analyzer provided the best balance between soliciting information that would tailor the results to the sample home without requiring an excessive level of detail. The tool includes as a default value actual energy costs for the sponsoring utilities that serve homes in the area specified. While the Home Energy Advisor and Home Energy Saver allow the user to input actual energy costs, by including actual energy costs as a default value, the Home Analyzer gives the user more precise inputs without requiring the user to obtain actual energy costs on their own. The Home Energy Advisor also averages weather information from multiple weather stations which results in more accurate weather inputs than the other tools. If the Office of Clean Energy is simply looking for a high level educational tool, it could provide links to the Alliance to Save Energy’s Home Energy Checkup. If the Office of Clean Energy is looking for a web-based audit tool that provides users with estimates of energy usage and potential areas of savings, the free tools are sufficient for this purpose. The tools
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