PNNL

Abstract

As part of its annual budget request to Congress, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) provides estimates of the expected performance and benefits of the energy-efficiency programs it supports. The authors estimate the energy, environmental, and economic benefits of the projects and technologies that focus on reducing U.S. building energy use. The results of the analysis are used by EERE to set strategic goals and objectives as well as defend the Presidential Budget before Congress. This paper focuses on a description and discussion of the methodological approaches used to measure the expected energy, environmental and economic benefits produced by a diverse portfolio of building energy conservation programs. This paper also describes the strengths and weaknesses of the modeling approaches and identifies areas that could benefit from additional research. This paper is based on the evaluation of 25 EERE projects that target a mixture of building energy end uses. The types of projects supported by EERE include building and equipment R&D, market transformation, regulatory codes and appliance standards, grant programs, and other deployment activities. Because of the diversity of types of projects, the overall approach becomes a compromise between the use of a single analytical framework for all projects and one in which tailored methodologies are designed for specific projects.