Pacific Gas and Electric
Many utilities and other organizations are trying to find the most reliable and least expensive way to measure energy savings from whole-building retrofits. These retrofits encompass investments in many building systems, equipment, and operating practices.
Pacific Gas and Electric ran a pilot program to explore how these measurements might be collected and to understand the pros and cons for various methods. They hired Lattice Energy to comprehensively assess this pilot effort.
The demonstration comprised 12 medium-sized commercial buildings: five grocery stores, six office buildings, and a library. The participants implemented a variety of efficiency measures including retrofitting lighting and HVAC equipment and improving controls settings.
The pilot relied on IPMVP Whole Building Approaches, namely Options C and D, to estimate savings. Our investigation concluded that to achieve transparency the Option C method should be implemented with open-source tools and that the Option D method was too expensive.