Fall 2015 Weatherization Assistant Fuel Cost Update

Updated vendor fuel costs for the major investor owned utilities are as follows:

$/kWh
Duke: $0.122
I&M: $0.118
IPL: $0.095
Vectren: $0.216
NIPSCO: $0.138

$/Mcf
Vectren: $8.832
NIPSCO: $6.408
Citizens Energy Group: $8.069

These fuel costs are based on the newest average pre-NAC for local burn homes from the 2012-2013 Billing Analysis report.  The average pre-NAC for natural gas was 1,016 therms.  The average pre-NAC for electricity was 10,382 kWh.  The monthly percentage of fuel consumption assumptions remain the same as they have been.

2013-2014 Preliminary Final BEACon results

Because preliminary final makes so much sense.

BEACon has finished grinding out the data for homes weatherized between April 1, 2013 and March 31, 2014, as well as the corresponding energy assistance program data.  That said, the outputs need to be reviewed for possible excessive study attrition (consumption data getting kicked out due to format issues, etc.) to include as much reliable data as possible in this year's study.  That said:

State averages (net):

Site built natural gas - 204 (+/-8) therms; 22% (+/-.8%)

Site built electric - 1,497 (+/-498) kWh; 5% (+/-2%)


Mobile home natural gas - 80 (+/-17) therms; 10% (+/-2%)

Mobile home electric - Unknown (really big relative standard errors on this one)
519 (+/-621) KWh; .3% (+/-3%)

The data will be reviewed over the next few days/weeks depending on what (if anything) is found and needs to be run again.  If the review goes well, the agency summaries will be trickling out soon there after.

2015 Vectren Share the Warmth wrap up

This year's Share the Warmth program funded by Vectren and it's customer's donations wrapped up earlier this month.  119 households participated, up from 94 participants last year.  $257,874 was spent to help weatherize homes participating in Indiana's low income weatherization program.  A few program highlights:

• 74 received a new furnace to replace an existing, but unsafe furnace.
• 16 cook stoves were replaced or repaired to eliminate unsafe levels of carbon monoxide being made.
• 20 unsafe gas fired water heaters were replaced.
• 170,522 cfm@50 Pascals worth of air sealing reductions was achieved.  Which is roughly the equivalent of there being three doors left open year round, letting hot air leave in the winter.  Those three doors are now shut and keeping warm air inside the homes.
• Over 1.5 acres of attic insulation was installed (66,945 square feet).
• Enough walls were insulated to cover nearly 15 IMAX screens (55,589 square feet).
• 1,413 feet of pipe insulation was installed, taller than five Indiana State Soldiers and Sailors Monuments stacked one on top of another.
• 20,174 square feet of mobile home belly insulation was installed, enough to insulate more than four basketball court floors.

The map below shows where the funds were spent throughout the state (anonymized by county).  Nearly 40% of the funds were put to use in Madison, Knox, Vigo, and Vanderburgh counties.  

  

The next map breaks down a few bits of information for each county where Share the Warmth funds were utilized.

Please click on a spot to see how much was spent & claimed for STW

And for the implementation bits:

I would like to thank Ohio Valley Opportunities, Community Action of Western Indiana, PACE, Community & Family Services, Central Indiana CAP, Western Indiana Community Action, South Central CAP, Hoosier Uplands, TRI-CAP, and Lincoln Hills for accepting and putting to use additional Share the Warmth funds.  I appreciate your flexibility!

Vectren Share the Warmth 2015 - June update

Here is an update for Share the Warmth's spending levels as of the beginning of June.  Just under half of the participating Weatherization providers have successfully claimed at least half of their allocations.

With two months to go, over $144,000 has been claimed with a little over $113,000 remaining before the final benchmark arrives at the end of June.  Big thanks to Area IV for getting their total allocation claimed in well ahead of schedule.  For everyone else, keep those claims coming in!  I will be reaching out to many of you to provide a list of clients that have administrative costs yet to be reimbursed.  

Thanks again for your hard work!

2015 Vectren Share the Warmth mapping

Trying out a new visualization method. Rather than relying on charts to show progress for the Share the Warmth program this year, here are some maps:

STW funds claimed by county:

The claims and funding levels are aggregated and tracked by county, so no personal information of the clients is identified.  As of today, 52 homes have been successfully claimed for a total of $113,954.37.  Just a little under the half way, from a funding standpoint.  But less than two months to go before the final benchmark (July 1st).

Over 70 percent of the participating providers have claimed less than half of their allocated funds at this point.  I hope to see more claims coming in the next month.  Thanks for all your hard work thus far...

Pre-Weatherization consumption data for EAP clients - spring 2015

Pre-weatherization consumption data was uploaded to the IWAP database this morning.  The upload consists of EAP clients that will be in the 2013-2014 Billing Analysis study's comparison group, but just NIPSCO and Vectren customers at this time.  

There is over 19,000 NACs uploaded for electric usage and over 38,000 NACs for natural gas usage.  Those NACs should be showing up in your waiting lists and when you search for new clients to put on your wait list.


p.s. interim savings results for Weatherization providers with NIPSCO and Vectren customers should be making their way to the providers the next week or so.  As well as requests for additional information that wasn't found in the IWAP database, but is needed for the billing analysis study.  Which would also include lists of clients that will need fuel release forms...

Spring 2015 Wx Assistant fuel cost update

Updated vendor fuel costs for the major investor owned utilities are as follows:

$/kWh
Duke: $0.126
I&M: $0.12
IPL: $0.096
Vectren: $0.216
NIPSCO: $0.138

$/Mcf
Vectren: $8.832
NIPSCO: $8.028
Citizens Energy Group: $9.137

These fuel costs are based on the newest average pre-NAC for local burn homes from the 2012-2013 Billing Analysis report.  The average pre-NAC for natural gas was 1,016 therms.  The average pre-NAC for electricity was 10,382 kWh.  The monthly percentage of fuel consumption assumptions remain the same as they have been.

2012-2013 Billing Analysis Report - Indiana Weatherization Program

The Billing Analysis Report for homes Weatherized between April 1, 2012 and March 31, 2013 was completed at the end of March.  Here are a few highlights from the full report.

• 2,341 households were weatherized, serving 5,423 people.
• Average net natural gas savings of 264 therms (+/- 10), 22.6% (+/-.8%).
• The state average of 264 therms is the largest average measured since INCAA has been performing billing analysis for the entire state.
• Average gross electric savings for electrically heated homes of 1,571 kWh (+/-294).

The average net natural gas percent savings are shown in Figure 7 from the Billing Analysis report.  Ninety six percent of Indiana's Weatherization providers were able to meet IHCDA's net natural gas savings benchmark of 15 percent. 

Natural gas is approximately $1.00 per therm on average in Indiana.  So each therm saved is another dollar each weatherization household has to spend on something other than their gas bill.  Figure 8 from the report shows how many therms (and roughly dollars) each client saved on average.  $264 per year might not seem like much, but it is more than 1% of the average weatherization client's household income, assuming the household income is at the Federal Poverty threshold for a family of two.  The CAPs at the left hand side of the chart are worth noting.  They made an even bigger fiscal impact on their weatherization client's households.  And these energy savings are persistent for the lifetime of the retrofits, which means they will last for years to come, stretching the savings out into the future for the people living in that home.

The Billing Analysis process has begun again for the 2013-2014 DOE cycle.  So program managers can expect requests from me for additional data and fuel release forms in the near future.

2012-2013 Billing Analysis results (updated 2015-02-10)

The billing analysis results for homes weatherized in the 2012-2013 DOE cycle will be trickling out over the next few weeks.  As they do, I'll be updating the results for the agencies that have been sent out.  The state average net natural gas savings is about 32 percent higher than last year's average (from 200 therms to 264 therms).  The average natural gas percent savings was up about 23 percent, from 18.3 percent to 22.6 percent.

Agency	NAS	%
NWICA	301	25.5%
RS	236	20.0%
Area IV	189	19.7%
Area Five	294	27.2%
CAGI	258	21.9%
CANI	206	19.6%
CAPE	377	27.7%
CFS	220	19.3%
COWI	73	9.8%
HSI	302	35.1%
ICAP	291	25.5%
CICAP	516	27.2%
HUEDC	213	24%
LHDC	219	35.5%
NCCAA	212	18.8%
OVO	580	51.2%
SCCAP	227	38.8%
SIEOC	155	18.4%
TRICAP	189	31.4%
WICAA	209	26.9%
PACE	486	33.8%
CASI	325	18.9%
PWC	227	24%
INDIANA	264	22.6%

And that is all of them.  Next up is the statewide report...

Electronic signatures for field work

Back in the early, chaotic days of ARRA (were the days ever not chaotic during ARRA?) I was trying to get as much of Indiana's paperwork to a workable level on my laptop.  As a contractor for a CAP, transferring files electronically made more sense to me.  Plus, there is so much little bits of math here and there in Indiana's Wx process, it makes sense to me to have those formulas automated.  Eventually, I know I'll make a little mistake that can ripple, so automating the proper formula gives me one less thing to worry about, letting me focus more energies on the client & the house.

Anywho, there was no getting around the documents that needed a client's signature.  Those had to be hard copies kept in a folder in the work bag, along with the seldom used forms that one carries, just in case.

Those of you now using touch screen laptops (Surfaces, etc.), that problem doesn't exist.  Those nifty capacitive pens let clients sign right on the screen.

I finally stumbled upon how to sign documents on your mobile device (agnostic name for Android or Apple phones).  Here is a step by step, using Adobe Reader.

Oh, and those of you using Android tablets in the field, the MS office suite looks to be out of beta.  I haven't used it.  I'd love to hear some feedback of how well it works if anyone is.