A New Tool for Home Energy Retrofit Analysis and Verification

Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have developed a new tool for analysis and verification of home energy retrofit action. This tool utilizes monthly billing data, a relatively easy to obtain piece of information, to estimate energy savings from home energy retrofit work. This tool will be hosted online and will be publicly available for use, along with the methodology and code which make the tool run. This tool is recommended for use by various parties, from contractors to researchers, who would like a better understanding of the installed performance of energy retrofit work. Contractors may utilize analysis tools to validate the efficacy of their work, show savings from previous similar work to customers and potential customers, and provide post-work reports to customers. Program administrators may validate program operation and performance and obtain a better understanding of actual savings from prioritization of program spending and deployment. Energy efficiency professionals may utilize this analytical tool to better understand retrofit technology performance with easily accessible data. This presentation will describe the basic methodology used to develop the tool, possible routes for implementation for various user groups, and justification of why various groups may be interested in analytical tools of this nature.