Painting a Big Picture: Using Activity Counts and Savings Multipliers To Estimate State Energy Program Accomplishments

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) recently completed an evaluation of the energy and cost savings and emissions reductions achieved by a wide variety of energy efficiency and renewable energy activities performed by the states and territories under the State Energy Program (SEP). For that study, ORNL developed a classification scheme for describing the various activities supported by SEP funds, focusing almost exclusively on activities for which energy savings could be quantified. Eighteen distinct project areas were identified and a total of 32 specific performance metrics were developed within those broad areas. In response to a request for metrics data, all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and four of the five U.S. territories provided information on their relevant SEP-supported activities. Estimates of the savings resulting from each activity were developed for 17 of the 18 project areas using the findings from recent evaluations, and those energy-savings coefficients were multiplied by the activity counts provided by the states to calculate energy savings. Those energy savings, in turn, were used to estimate cost savings and emissions reductions. Estimated annual energy savings from the relevant activities performed by the states and territories during their 2002 program year totaled approximately 48 trillion source BTUs, and cost savings exceeded $333 million. Slightly more than three-fourths of those total savings occurred in fiv