IEA Implementing Agreement on Demand-Side Management Technologies and Programmes

IEA-DSM TASK XXI: Standardisation of Energy Savings Calculations

Work plan

Prepared by: Harry Vreuls, SenterNovem

Version approvedby mail ballot IEA DSM EXCO September 2009

Harry Vreuls

SenterNovem

PO box 17

6130 AA Sittard

The Netherlands

Phone + 31 46 4202258

E-mail

Table of content

1.Introduction

2.Motivation

3.Objective

4.Approach

Subtask 1: Existing energy savings calculation (ESC) standards and standards under development, and use of most relevant reports for ESC

Subtask 2: Basic concepts, rules and systems for ESC standards

Subtask 3: Potential for use and continue development and maintenance of ESC standards

Subtask 4: Communication and information

5.Timetable

6.Costs

7.Task information plan

Annex 1: Summary table actions and deliverables

1.Introduction

In October 2006 in Maastricht, the EXCO delegates discussed the Action plan for the IEA DSM-programme, including the EU Directive on Energy Efficiency and Energy Services (ESD) in relation to evaluation. At the meeting October 2007 in Bruges the EXCO decided that a concept paper on “Standardisation of Energy Efficiency Calculations” should be developed. This paper was presented at the EXCO meeting in April 2008 and got support from several countries within the EU and outside. The foreseen Operating Agent (Harry Vreuls, SenterNovem) was asked to prepare a draft work plan and to organise a Task Organising meeting with experts from all interested countries to discuss and finalise the work plan for the Task. This Task Organising meeting was held in Milan, 21 October 2008 and the results were presented during the EXCO meeting 23 October. At that meeting the EXCO decided to initiate the work for Task XXI and asked the Operating Agent to finalise the work plan in co-operating with the experts from the participating countries. At the EXCO meeting April 2009 a revised work plan was presented and the delegates decided that the objectives should be more targeted and improve the clarity; no major changes in substance were needed. The revised plan should be sent for ballot-voting.

The European Commission is developing a harmonised top-down and bottom-up reporting system on energy efficiency improvements and energy savings. A consortium of 21 institutes is assisting the European Commission in developing these harmonised evaluation method in a project called EMEEES (Evaluation and Monitoring for the EU Directive on Energy End-Use Efficiency and Energy Services; ). The (main interim) results from this project were presented at a workshop in Brussels, 15 October 2008 and final reports will be available by summer 2009. In the reporting system the EC wants the bottom up reporting to become more and more important. In the first step the harmonised bottom-up model should cover a level between 20 and 30 % of the annual final inland energy consumption and should be used for the first national reports by June 2011. Until January 2012, the Commission continues to develop this harmonised bottom-up model, which shall cover significantly higher level energy consumption for the reporting by June 2014.

The European Committee for Standardization (CEN) is working on standardisation for energy efficiency and savings calculations. This resulted in the CWA 27 report, an advice for energy savings lifetime, and a project plan for the Taskforce 190 “Energy efficiency and savings calculation”. At the moment the work is ongoing within two working groups of this Taskforce. The bottom up working group concentrates the standardisation on the level of “systems” and started with drafting a standard for energy efficiency and savings calculations for buildings. Adraft for informal consultation was made public in June 2009.

In the USA there are a lot of ongoing evaluation activities. Also the International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol (IPMVP) was developed and updated with major input for the USA. Several evaluation guidebooks include energy savings calculation and the evaluation of savings and the impact of public programmes on these savings. E.g. EPA Model, Energy Efficiency Program Impact Evaluation Guide and work by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and the National Action Plan for Energy Efficiency Program Evaluation Guide.We would like to refer to actions taken and planned by the North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB) and Canena.

During some time efforts are taken to move toward the harmonisation of compliance procedures, particularly with regarding to testing activities. This should increase the ease of comparisons between jurisdictions regarding the comparative performance of individual actors and policy measures. The EXCO discussed work in this field (2003-2004) as a potential task XII “Energy Standards, but decided not to start this task. Recently the new IEA Implementing Agreement 4E (Efficient Electrical End-Use Equipment) started and might give attention to this topic.

The IEA organised 28-29 February 2008 in Paris a workshop “Meeting energy efficiency goals: enhancing compliance, monitoring & evaluation”. The ideas for a new Task within the IEA DSM Agreement were presentedin combination with the results from Task I, subtask 9, The IEA DSM evaluation guidebook. The results of the workshop included also opportunities for evaluation; one is clearly linked to this task: “Common methodologies would also be useful. This could include a framework with different options, practices in evaluation costing, the identification of which sectors to evaluate, appropriate discount rates, co-benefits for inclusion, how to treat additionally, attribution, baseline determination and assumptions documentation, among others” and Common terminology could similarly be used” (from the chairman report)

2.Motivation

Many policies and measures for improving energy efficiency now exist and continue to improve, both of a voluntary and mandatory nature. The continued development of this field of policy reflects growing acceptance of the importance of such measures in seeking to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, minimise the cost of energy services, enhance energy security and address wider environmental concerns. Estimations as to projected energy savings, emissions reductions or financial gains from energy efficiency measures are now common place. Recent examples include the November 2007 report of the United States (US) National Action Plan for Energy Efficiency Leadership Group, the European Union (EU) Energy Efficiency Action Plan, which anticipates that if energy consumption is cut by 20% by 2020, the Fourth Assessment Report (2007) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which concludes that energy efficiency measures will play a key role in mitigating the human-induced effects of climate change across many of its scenarios, for most regions and timescales .

On 8 June 2008, the G8 countries, China, India, South Korea and the European Community decided to establish the International Partnership for Energy Efficiency Cooperation (IPEEC)This Partnership will facilitate those actions that yield high energy efficiency gains and improvements, and will support the ongoing work of the participating countries and relevant organisations to promote energy efficiency. In the IPEEC scope one of the areas is: methodologies of energy measurement, auditing and verification procedures, certification protocols and other tool to achieve optimal energy efficiency performance over the lifetime of building and industrial processes, relevant products, appliances and equipment.

Evaluation is an essential component of any compliance process and an essential aspect of sound policy implementation more broadly. Evaluation plays a key role in helping to determine whether energy efficiency policy has met its goals. Some compelling reasons to evaluate energy efficiency programmes are:

  • Ex-ante analysis of energy efficiency policy options can help to ensure that the most appropriate policies are selected.
  • Evaluation during policy implementation allows policy makers to address policy design problems along the way and for updates to the policy measure to be made as necessary.
  • Ex-post analysis of energy efficiency policies allows for an assessment of whether a measure has achieved its intended objectives or not, how and why, and thus can enhance learning from the effectiveness or otherwise of past measures.
  • Evaluation is essential for verifying tradable units of energy conservation, such as in White Certificate Trading programmes and government commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

How the ex-post energy savings calculations are conducted and what are the most important elements for the quantitative evaluation of the energy savings impacts of policies and measures? Within the EU the ESD is a new stimulus to harmonise bottom-up monitoring and (in a later phase) evaluation work within the 27 Member States. In the near future European standards for energy savings might become available. But also in other countries and regions work is ongoing in this field. A broader agreement on the basic concepts, rules and system borders in IEA member states can stimulate the development of these standards on one hand and ensure global (maybe world wide) comparability of standards for energy saving calculation on the other.

The experiences from the EU standardisation process show that most energy experts are not common with the rules on standardisation. But also that the main conducted work for standardisation is on a detailed level of appliances or components. Standardisation on an energy efficiency improvement and energy savings should start with more common understanding within the energy expert. Only if there is already a common ground on terms and definition within energy experts a next step in more official standardisation under the umbrella of the ISO could have a reasonable chance to result in a set of standards.

In the evaluation of DSM, Energy Efficiency and Demand Response actions a number of effects can be taken into consideration. There is a need for an overall view over the several Tasks within the IEA DSM Agreement for the following groups of effects for energy, environmental impacts, costs and investment impacts on different places of the electricity system (the consumers site, the electrical systems and thegeneral energetic system), the scale of premises (regional, national and global premises) and the scope (short and long term). Within the Kyoto commitments countries can use flexible mechanism as CDM and JI. Most of those projects calculate energy savings and resulting avoided greenhouse gas emissions. In the second commitment period the system of flexible mechanism will continue and a step forward in more standardised methods would ease the use of this mechanism.

3.Objective

The overall aim of Task XXI is to identify basic concepts, calculation rules and systems forEnergy Savings Calculations (ESC) standards. Both energy savings and emissions avoidance calculation methods and standards will be evaluated for efficiency activities. Additional a methodology should be developed to nominate and describe the several Demand Response products[1]. The Task will also explore how and by what type of organisations these draft standards could be used (and improved) to increase international comparable evaluation of policies and measures.

The three primarily objectives of this Task are to:

  1. Summarize and compare the current methods and standards used for determining energy use, energy demand and energy and emissions savings from energy efficiency actions and policies;
  2. Identify the organizations that are and could be responsible for use and maintenance of such methods and standards;
  3. Recommend how existing methods, standards and resources can be expanded and/or used for comparing different countries’ and international efficiency policies and actions.

While this project may recommend future efforts to develop international energy efficiency EM&V standards and/or resources, this Task does not involve efforts to produce harmonized standards among the countries involved with this Task.

4.Approach

The actual research work will be carried out by a combination of the country experts, the Operating Agent, inputs from (experts involved in) standardisation bodies and from Operating Agents and reports for other relevant IEA DSM Tasks. In general the experts are responsible for identifying and obtaining information on ESC standards in their countries. The Operating Agent is responsible for mobilising inputs and comments from standardisation bodies, from other IEA Tasks, and for analysing and drawing conclusions for the information provided by the experts.

At least one but preferable two regional (Europe, North America, Asia, Pacific region) workshops will be organised. Additional to mobilise input for standardisation bodies the developed work will be presented, if possible in a form that could be used for training purposes.

The Work plan for Standardisation of Energy Efficiency Calculations will comprise four subtasks:

  • Subtask 1: Existing energy savings calculation (ESC) standards and standards under development,and use of most relevant reports for ESC
  • Subtask 2: Basic concept, rules and systems for ESC standards
  • Subtask 3: Potential for use and continue development and maintenance of ESC standards
  • Subtask 4: Communication and information

Subtask 1: Existing energy savings calculation (ESC) standards and standards under development, and use of most relevant reports for ESC

Subtask objectives

•To identify national and regional existing energy saving calculation (ESC) standards and standards under development

•To identify and asses the most relevant evaluation and monitoring reports for ESC

•To identify basic terms and definitions, calculation rules and systems.

•To identify the key elements to structure Demand Response products.

Subtask Deliverable

A report summarising the most relevant guidelines and standards – national and international - on ESC, with a focus on identifying common approaches for determining savings and terminology as well as key elements to structure Demand Response products.

Work to be carried out

The country experts will identify national standards and indicate regional standards and also what barriers exist for transforming energy savings calculations into agreed standards. As far as possible these barriers will be researched for different parties (governmental organisations, producers, consumers, scientific groups). The country experts, as well as the Operating Agent, will identify the most relevant evaluation and monitoring reports for ESC. They will asses these reports for use to define basic terms and definitions (concepts), calculation rules and systems.In this process the country experts and the Operating Agent will also investigate key elements in existing DR products in the participating countries.

The experts summarise the outcome of the work in a country report.

The Operating Agent will ensure (in co-operating with the participating national experts) that the international standards will be included. He will include experiences from other Tasks within the IEA DSM Agreement, from the finalised Task XIV White certificates, Task I, Evaluation guidebook and Task XIII Demand Response Resources and ongoing Task XVI on Competitive Energy Services and Task XVIII DSM and Climate Change. He will also take care of knowledge development in other IEA Implementing Agreements as the 4E for Efficient Electrical End-Use Equipment. He will ensure that existing knowledge from the UNFCCC (e.g. CDM projects).

The Operating Agent will review the DR products, as indicated by the country experts for the potential to develop a methodology to structurethe DR products. He will also take into account the products from Task XIII Demand Resources. The work is restricted to key elements and is focussed on how definitions as used in DR products could come more in line with those used for energy efficiency improvement programs and definitions use in electric system operation as well as in the ESCO´s business (Task XVI).

He will organise the country experts’ assessment of the most relevant documents and review the draft country reports. Once all the information is collected, the Operating Agent will summarise the results and draft a report summarising the most relevant guidelines and standards on ESC and barriers to realise standards as well as key element to structure DR products. The country experts will discuss and comment thedraft report.

Subtask 2: Basic concepts, rules and systems for ESC standards

Subtask objective

  • To draft the basic terms and definitions, calculation rules and systems are in use in ESC and how these are transformable to (draft) standards.
  • To develop a methodology to structure Demand Response products, including ‘general accepted’ criteria.
  • For existing standards or standards under preparation to identify how and why these standards are or could be used in impact evaluation for policies and measures.
  • To provide comments to organisations those have draft ESC standards or standards under development.

Subtask Deliverables