Reflections on the effect of COVID-19 on Energy Evaluation in the Asia Pacific Region

In a recent meeting, our Energy Evaluation Asia Pacific Group took some time to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on them personally, at work, nationally, and more widely on Energy Evaluation in the region. Here is a short summary of the discussion.

COVID-19 and energy

The global pandemic has affected the economic situation worldwide, with the global economy expecting to shrink by at least 6% in 2020.[1] It has also highlighted the importance of a reliable energy supply to enable hospitals to deliver vital care, and it has connected people in new ways despite working remotely in their own homes. Reduced energy consumption, in particular electricity, was a side-effect of economic slowdown and lockdowns.[2] However, an increased portion of this consumption and associated cost has fallen to individual households.

Working online

Face to face meetings are now tough to hold, and there’s a feeling that everything that can be done online, should be done online. Some of our members in China felt this had increased productivity, and had actually helped accelerate some projects. Others at the early stages of projects in Indonesia noted slow progress in the absence of face to face meetings. A colleague in New Zealand reported that they had used the time to organise for the future.

The current situation

Financial recovery and several stimulus programmes are happening in the region, some include energy efficiency measures but few plan to include evaluation.

In India, our members spoke about challenges and opportunities arising from the pandemic, with India being at a cornerstone point where new programmes on supply side and infrastructure are being initiated and are in a strong position to integrate energy efficiency and include evaluations at the design stage itself. Our colleagues in India had heard a lot of discussions by ministers about energy efficiency and renewable energy programmes and how they will contribute to generating jobs, but there is little discussion being had on energy efficiency and evaluation of these programmes in a serious manner.

Australia is planning both financial recovery programmes and energy efficiency programmes. Supporting low income and vulnerable households will be a clear priority, and recent multiple benefits work has provided evidence for governments wanting to have the maximum impact. Everyone is spending more time at home so households are now consuming energy and incurring costs which had been absorbed by workplaces previously.

In the USA, our members reported a lot of money going into financial recovery programmes which include spending on the energy transition. They believe that there is a need for policymakers to ensure energy and carbon emissions goals are being met while addressing the pandemic. Policymakers have been focused on the implementation of programs and policies and less attention has been spent on evaluation. There is an opportunity for evaluators to engage with policymakers to ensure evaluation is part of the mix when developing and implementing energy programs.

What next?

Past evaluations have produced a wealth of evidence which can be put to use in the current economic crisis. This discussion has prompted us to draw together the lessons we have learned from previous moments of crisis, and we will be publishing a blogpost on this soon, including useful resources. Watch this space!

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[1] http://www.oecd.org/economic-outlook/june-2020/

[2] https://www.iea.org/reports/covid-19-impact-on-electricity

Evaluating the UK’s Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme

Webinar #16 of the Energy Evaluation Academy. Speakers: Laura Edwards and Gary Shanahan (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, UK) .

View the recordings of the webinar here.

Download the slides here.

In 2014, the UK introduced the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) to implement requirements under the Article 8 of the Energy Efficiency Directive (mandatory energy audits for large companies/non-SMEs).

This webinar presented the methodology used in the evaluation and its key findings. It then ended with a broader discussion on policies to expand business energy efficiency.

FURTHER READINGS

Fore more details about the evaluation of the UK’s Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme:

– latest evaluation report: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/energy-audits-and-reporting-research-including-the-energy-savings-opportunity-scheme

– interim evaluation report: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/energy-savings-opportunity-scheme-esos-evaluation-of-the-scheme

The Energy Evaluation Academy is jointly organised by Energy Evaluation and Leonardo Energy.

US Department of Energy’s Uniform Methods Project

Webinar #15 of the Energy Evaluation Academy. Speakers: Charles “Chuck” Kurnik (US DOE National Renewable Energy Laboratory – NREL).

View the recordings of the webinar here.

Download the slides here.

This webinar provided an overview of the US Department of Energy’s Uniform Methods Project that develops protocols for determining energy savings from energy efficiency measures and programs.

The webinar will discuss the motivations of this project, the development process, measures, and how they are used.

For more details about the Uniform Methods Project, visit the website: https://www.energy.gov/eere/about-us/ump-protocols

The Energy Evaluation Academy is jointly organised by Energy Evaluation and Leonardo Energy.

Lessons learnt about evaluation practices for energy efficiency policies in Europe

Speakers:

• Gregor Thenius, Austrian Energy Agency
• Jean-Sébastien Broc, IEECP (Institute for a European Energy & Climate Policy)

View the recordings of the webinar here.

Download the slides here.

While we enter a transition in the European framework for energy efficiency, ex-post impact evaluations can bring facts and figures about current achievements towards the 2020 targets, and useful feedback to improve policies in view of the 2030 targets.

The Horizon 2020 EPATEE project analysed evaluation practices in EU countries and developed resources to help enhancing them. After an overview of these resources, this webinar presented the main lessons learnt from exchanging with evaluation customers and evaluators, with a focus on comparing estimated and metered energy savings, and how to integrate evaluation into the policy cycle.

Webinar joinlty organised by and

The EPATEE project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 746265.

Disclaimer: Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for the use which might be made of this webinar and related contents. The views expressed in this webinar are the sole responsibility of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission

How to improve the evaluation of complex systems to improve policy-making

Webinar #14 of the Energy Evaluation Academy. Speaker: Sara Giorgi (Research Consultant & Evaluator)

View the recordings of the webinar here.

Download the slides here.

Evaluation is intended to provide policymakers and practitioners with feedback and recommendations to improve policy making and implementation. The success of an evaluation and the impact of its findings hinges on the way policymakers and practitioners are involved in and perceive the evaluation process. The more complex the policy, the more challenging this relationship becomes.

New report launched on Australia’s progress towards the UN #SDGs shows gains in #health, #education 
& #employment but less success in reducing household #debt, housing affordability & action on #ClimateChange.
www.sdgtransformingaustralia.com

Energy Program and Policy Evaluation Capacity Building in the Asia Pacific

Webinar #13 of the Energy Evaluation Academy. Speaker: Edward Vine (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

View the recordings of the webinar here.

Download the slides here.

The Asia Pacific region is a center of interest and activity for energy efficiency and renewable energy technology, programs and policies. Evaluation will play an essential role to developing effective policy and to understanding the impacts of policy and program implementation.

Energy Evaluation Asia-Pacific (EEAP) is a non-profit organization that is taking a leadership role in expanding the practice of, and capacity for, objective evaluation in the energy efficiency and renewable energy fields.

This presentation highlights evaluation capacity building, EEAP, and key topics of EEAP’s Second Evaluation Conference (held in Bangkok in October 2019).

Multiple Benefits project partners to collaborate with businesses to improve competitive advantage and energy performance.

The EU-funded Horizon 2020 project “Valuing and Communicating the Multiple Benefits of Energy Efficiency” today launched its new web site. The site will serve as a platform for collaboration between project partners and businesses to make energy efficiency investments a lasting competitive advantage.

Why don’t companies invest more in energy efficiency? One answer is that efficiency projects are not viewed as strategic priorities. While energy engineers propose projects based on energy savings and payback, investment committees prioritise projects on the basis of strategic impacts to the company.

By quantifying and communicating multiple benefits of energy efficiency – like improved product quality, enhanced worker productivity, improved indoor air quality, reduced maintenance costs – energy efficiency can become strategic.

But, what does strategic mean? “An investment is strategic if it contributes to create, maintain or develop a sustainable competitive advantage” says Dr. Catherine Cooremans, a project partner from the Université de Lausanne who specialises in the strategic and cultural dimensions of investment decision-making.

Developing a training platform and toolkit with and for businesses

Starting in 2019, the project team will offer businesses a training platform and toolkit, including analysis methods and communication tools.

Partners will work directly with at least 50 businesses to analyse, communicate and evaluate the strategic impacts of energy-saving actions. In parallel, Multiple Benefits partners will compile a public evidence base of case studies, project examples and results to bolster investment proposals.

More information

The project website is now launched at the following URL: www.m-benefits.eu. Companies and others who are interested in learning more should sign up for the mailing list

The IEc team applied a mixed-methods design to evaluate the US DOE’s Building America (BA) program, a residential large-scale technology demonstration, peer-to-peer information exchange and market diffusion program for residential energy efficiency (EE) technologies and practices. BA advanced the systems engineering, whole house approach to residential EE that has become the standard practice. BA’s marque intervention is the use of building teams, comprised of production homebuilders and building science experts, that work together to conduct large scale demonstrations of EE practices and refine approaches until they are cost-effective.1 Many EE construction approaches have gained market acceptance as a result of BA’s work, including the air tightness, duct tightness, envelope insulation, and thermal bridging requirements that were integrated into EnergyStar Homes and into IECC model energy code.

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How and what can we learn from verifying energy savings first estimated with engineering calculations? (part 2)

Experience sharing webinar of the EPATEE project.

Speakers:

Pr. Laure Itard, Chair Building Energy Epidemiology, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands

Dr. Alex Summerfiel, Energy Institute, University College of London, UK

View the recordings of the webinar here.

Download the slides here.

The EPATEE project dedicated two experience sharing webinars to the comparison of energy savings based on engineering calculations with energy savings determined from metered energy consumption. The first part presented two examples of ex-post evaluations that tackled this issue. For more details about this topic, see also the dedicated EPATEE case study.

This webinar provided a complementary experience from studies using large databases of metered energy consumption by presenting the following cases:

> Case 1: Energy savings from renovations in the Dutch non-profit housing sector, with a statistical analysis of the differences between results based on the Energy Performance Certificates, and results based on metered energy consumption.

For more details about this case, see: Filippidou, F., Nieboer, N., and H. Visscher, 2017. Effectiveness of energy renovations: a reassessment based on actual consumption savings. Proceedings of the ECEEE 2017 Summer Study, 1737-1746.

> Case 2: Analysis of the differences between energy consumption from building energy stock models, Energy Performance Certificates, and the impact of efficiency measures using metered data from the UK National Energy Efficiency Data-framework (NEED)

For more details about this case, see: Summerfield, A.J., Oreszczyn T., Palmer, J., and I.G. Hamilton, 2018. Caveats for Policy Development when Combining Energy Ratings, National Building Energy Models, and Empirical Statistics. Proceedings of IEPPEC 2018.

The webinar dealt with the following questions:

• What data and methods could be used to assess energy savings?
• How could the “metered” energy savings be compared with the “estimated” energy savings?
• What difficulties were encountered?
• What can be learnt in terms of evaluation practices for future evaluations?

The EPATEE project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 746265.

Disclaimer: Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for the use which might be made of this webinar and related contents. The views expressed in this webinar are the sole responsibility of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission