Most Recent Energy Efficiency Case Studies

Opower’s Home Energy Report, Minnesota  

This program is a great example of the use of ongoing individualized feedback and prompts, coupled with norm appeals. Opower helps individual utility companies to send customized home energy use feedback reports to their residential utility customers. The full-colour reports include a comparison with other similar households, offer tips and strategies to reduce energy use, and provide seasonal energy consumption information. A web portal offers personalized insights and tips, and tools for choosing an optimal energy rate plan. In addition, Opower offers utilities the opportunity to send text messages directly to customers to alert them when their energy consumption is high and offer ways to reduce it.

Green Communities Canada’s Home Energy Retrofit Incentive and Home Visit Program  

Making the housing stock more energy-efficient provides persistent and ongoing returns. However efforts to do so often run into obstacles that diminish program impacts. This program illustrates how to overcome many of these barriers, and how ongoing monitoring and evaluation can lead to program improvements over time. It’s also a great illustration of combining home visits with incentives for doing desired behaviours.

Cape Light Compact Smart Home Energy Monitoring Pilot  

This well designed and executed pilot project, which recently achieved unusually high energy use reductions among 100 volunteer participants, illustrates the power of real-time feedback, friendly competition, and timely, personalized, credible, empowering communications. Using wireless in-home energy monitors connected to the internet, participating homes received detailed information on how much energy was being used in the home, when it was being used, how much it cost, and actions that could reduce energy consumption and promote savings. In addition, a web-enabled communications network enabled the sharing of energy savings experiences and helped achieve individual and collective energy savings goals. Designated Landmark in 2010.

SMUD’S Home Electricity Report Program  

This well-evaluated program uses feedback, reminders, normative messaging, loss-aversion, goal setting and commitments to improve energy conservation and overcome the “rebound effect.” Sacramento county residents get Home Electricity Reports comparing monthly and annual electricity usage to 100 comparable homes and 20 comparable, highly efficient homes nearby; low-use households get happy faces on their reports. The customized reports also recommend specific energy-saving opportunities and show potential savings from reducing to the level of the 20 most efficient comparison households. Designated as a Landmark (best practice) case study in 2010.

Power Smart Residential Behavioural Program  

This program is a great example of applying the “loyalty group” approach to progressively engage participants in changing behaviours, using formative research to select target behaviours and design an effective strategy, monitoring impacts on an ongoing basis, and using a “control” group to substantiate program impacts. Because electricity and electricity conservation tend to be a low priority for many British Columbians, BC Hydro has connected energy conservation to the things that people care about through an opt-in loyalty model and a focus on story-telling, co-creation, challenges and individualized feedback. Regular communications repeatedly drive participants back to their Members’ Tool Box, which serves as a ‘hub’. Ultimately, the product mix is designed to increase participant engagement levels on three dimensions: affiliation, (“this is who I am”), resonance (“this is right for me”) and enjoyment (“I like this”). Designated a Landmark case study in 2011.

BC21 PowerSmart  

BC21 PowerSmart is a province wide project to conserve resources and create jobs. Residential energy efficiency audits are conducted, and incentives are offered to encourage residents to take steps to improve energy and water efficiency.

ClimateSmart Home Service, Queensland, Australia  

This case study is in the process of being posted

Once a resident signs up for Queensland’s ClimateSmart Home Service, a licensed electrician visits the home, installs a variety of energy-efficiency products, conducts an energy audit, provides recommendations, and leaves behind materials and prompts. The information collected is then used to create a customized plan that is sent to the homeowner six weeks after the visit, with different audience segments receiving different messaging. A voluntary personal energy challenge, wireless power monitors and on-line portal help motivate and empower participants. By the end of 2012, it is expected that 430,000 households will have taken up the service (24% of all Queensland homes) and will have reduced electricity usage by more than 795 million kWh/year and greenhouse gas emissions by 4.7 million tonnes over the life of the installed products. Households that have had the service so far are estimated to have reduced electricity use by 3.72kWh/day with total savings of 1,395kWh/year over the life of the installed products. Designated a Landmark case study in 2011.

20/20 The Way to Clean Air  

20/20 The Way to Clean Air involved individuals in the Greater Toronto Area in reducing home energy use and vehicle use by 20%. It asked participants to make a small commitment (some easy-to-do activities done for a period of two weeks), leading to a larger commitment (longer-term, greater cost savings actions), and connected them with programs and services that helped them succeed.

Everyday Kyoto  

Everyday Kyoto is a program for educating Bell Canada employees on climate change and inviting them to reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses released at work and at home.

Action By Canadians / Count Me In  

The Action By Canadians (ABC) and Count Me In! programs were designed to communicate the issue of climate change to the Canadian public through workshops delivered to individuals at their place of work. The climate change workshop focused on action by providing participants, at the end of the workshop, an opportunity to make a commitment to reduce greenhouse gases by adopting specific measures in their personal lives. By October 2000, over 3,500 Canadians had participated in these workshops. The Ontario Society of Training and Development awarded the ABC program with the Best External Training Program Award.

Sustainable Okotoks, Alberta  

Unprecedented steps have been taken by the Town of Okotoks, Alberta to ensure its long-term sustainability. The community has devised a sustainable development plan that rests on four guiding principles: environmental stewardship, economic opportunity, social conscience and fiscal responsibility.

Compact Fluorescent Lamp Vendor Program  

Southern California Edison, an American electric utility, reduced the price barrier that discouraged its residential and commercial customers from utilizing compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) rather than the less energy-efficient incandescent bulbs. Unlike traditional rebate programs that offer discounts directly to the consumer, the utility offered rebates of $5 per lamp to manufacturers of CFLs. The discount was amplified through the retail mark-up process, becoming even greater by the time it reached the consumer. This model was subsequently adopted by other utilities across the country.

Setback Thermostats: Research and Resource Alert  

This alert reviews research and resources relevant to turning down the heat (turning up the air conditioning temperature) - either by hand or using a setback thermostat - based on a report from Toronto Public Health.

Green$aver  

Green$aver provides home energy efficiency assessments and retrofit services in metropolitan Toronto. These assessments are conducted using Canada's EnerGuide for Houses system, which rates the overall energy efficiency of houses, identifies priority areas for improvement, and measures post-retrofit energy savings. Green$aver charges its customers a fee for its services, and it is trying to become a self-sustaining business. Work-based marketing approaches are being piloted, to promote Green$avers services to employees of local partner organizations.

Resource Conservation in Ashland, Oregon  

The City of Ashland runs a range of conservation incentive programs aimed primarily at promoting energy efficiency but also encompassing water conservation, regional air quality, recycling and composting, and land-use planning. The programs are designed to increase citizens' awareness of and access to conservation measures for new construction and retrofit, including residential weatherization, replacement of toilets and showerheads, composting, incentives for builders, and land-use ordinances.

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