High-Performance RTU Energy Savings and Market Evaluation Plan

Summary

As a market transformation program, ETA will work to overcome market barriers, leading to greater market adoption of targeted technologies, and ultimately, energy savings. In the initial years of a market transformation program, energy savings can be small as it can take time to grow the market.

In addition, the savings methodology for counting savings from market transformation initiatives (described further in this document) is more involved than is typically the case for utility rebate programs. Therefore, a careful evaluation plan is a complementary endeavor to estimating savings from market transformation programs because it can provide additional evidence of the effectiveness of programmatic efforts to break down barriers and support the estimation and claiming of energy savings.

Within the overall ETA program, individual market transformation initiatives (a programmatic effort around a specific technology or approach) are developed. This Energy Savings and Market Evaluation Plan focuses on the Commercial Rooftop Unit (RTU) Initiative. Here, we provide a thorough plan to both estimate savings and to measure market progress, prior to launching our initiative in the market. As we learn more about the market through additional research and our market engagement, we will continue to refine and update our approach.