AEP Health & Safety Repairs status update

We are nearing the half way point of AEP's Health & Safety Repair program.  I haven't done this with any other weatherization assistance utility funded program.  But I thought it might be helpful to see some pictures or different colored lines to communicate how much has been reimbursed for the program.

As of this weekend:

Now, for what matters going forward:

Please excuse the funky image quality.  They look ok on the computer screen, but after being pulled onto the site, they look rather dingy.  We're a little under halfway in the program and have reimbursed nearly half of the program's total funds.  There are still lots of funds to put to use, but quite a bit of time to do it in.  However, the majority of the funds remaining to be spent are in the hands of those providers that haven't claimed much since early February.

Spring 2014 Wx Assistant fuel cost update

Hello all!


It is almost April, so it is time to update your Weatherization Assistant fuel cost libraries.  The average fuel costs have been calculated for the major investor owned utilities and are listed below:


$/kWh
Duke: $0.127
I&M: $0.110
IPL: $0.096
Vectren: $0.168
NIPSCO: $0.135


$/Mcf
Vectren: $9.47
NIPSCO: $8.25
Citizens Energy Group: $11.28


The average weatherization home used 846 therms and 9986 kWh before being weatherized for this analysis.  The rest of the underlying assumptions remain the same.

Viewing recent local weather data

Fred Clade shared this with me the other day.

Indianapolis Climatological Data

Compared to digging through the monthly edited climate data, that link is much easier to get recent weather data at your finger tips.  No importing .csv files.  No long waiting, just the ease of drop down menus!

An interesting tidbit about the recent cold snaps in January.  There were 1387 HDD here in Indianapolis.  Historically, the average for January is 1145 HDD.  So for those of you here around Indy, you can tell your clients they can expect their heating bills to be about 21% more than they would be in a typical year.  Last year there were only 1083 HDD here in Indy, so they could expect a heating bill to be about 30% more than last year's bill.  Client Ed!

The process is a little different depending on what part of the state you want data for.  The link to the northeast (Fort Wayne) region is here.

As you can tell, the site is not the same.  To look at monthly data for the northwest part of Indiana, you need to select 'Preliminary Monthly Climate Data (CF6)', then pick the year and month you'd like to see. 

Northwest Indiana, Evansville,  and Cincinnati have a similar method.

2014 Vectren Share the Warmth

Has been approved.  Agencies with Vectren clients, be looking for MOUs in your mail.  There aren't any significant changes.  Client testimonials and pictures are still required.  Funding levels have increased a bit, and the time line is going to be shorter due to the MOUs not getting approved until February.  Here we go again!

ASHRAE 62.2 dog owner implications?

I've joked that there should be some exemption/credit in the ASHRAE 62.2 standard for dog owners letting their dog out to 'get some fresh air'.  After hearing this story about revolving doors and the energy/infiltration impacts of door openings, there might be something to it!

Random Billing analysis update: over 10,000 meter readings entered for over 270 local utility customers.

Pricing out tiered utility rate structures

I've gotten a few questions about how to determine annual energy costs when utilities have a tiered rate structure.  Here is a walk through for one method of modeling the annual electric costs. 

This model assumes that the house is NOT heated with electricity and that there is a summer cooling load.  So if the house is located in the Indianapolis, Evansville, or Cincinnati weather regions, this modeling would be appropriate.  If your homes are located in the Chicago, South Bend, or Fort Wayne regions, a smaller cooling load might be more appropriate.  If there is a need for this manner of modeling from the northern areas, I'll work on that later.

This table shows an assumed monthly allocation of how much electricity is consumed each month.  The percent allocation show below is what was used in the most recent DOE priority list run.  That analysis was based on the average electric consumption during the 2009-2010 evaluation period: 11,323 kWh.

Monthly profile	% of annual consumption		Monthly Consumption
January	0.068		769.964
February	0.051		577.473
March	0.05		566.15
April	0.051		577.473
May	0.06		679.38
June	0.115		1302.145
July	0.17		1924.91
August	0.142		1607.866
September	0.103		1166.269
October	0.063		713.349
November	0.063		713.349
December	0.064		724.672
Total	1.000		11323

This breakdown can then be used to determine the monthly bills of the hypothetical utility customer.  The sum of the 12 monthly bills divided by the number of kWh used during those twelve months (11,323) will tell what the average cost per kWh is for the purpose of NEAT & MHEA.

Update:
The following is a similar benchmark to use for determining average annual fuel costs for the small handful of natural gas providers that are not Vectren, NIPSCO, or CEG.  These are the monthly consumption amounts that can be used to determine the annual fuel costs (along with the utility rate tariffs):

Monthly profile	therms
January	169.671
February	140.408
March	113.366
April	65.9213
May	32.7063
June	13.425
July	10.2859
August	10.8714
September	21.7202
October	58.3251
November	106.783
December	153.517
Total	897

 

Second quarter status - BEACon

This year's energy impact report is progressing along.  Several successful test runs have taken place using BEACon with consumption data from Vectren.  Preliminary results have been sent to Weatherization providers based on those test runs with the Vectren data.  So some programs already have feedback on homes that were weatherized, shortening the time between completion and savings results.

There is still progress to be made on how to best incorporate the pre-weatherization consumption data back into the IWAP database.  Conversations are on going between IHCDA, Roeing, and INCAA to determine the best way to proceed.

So far requests for data have been made to nearly half of the state's metered fuel providers (54 providers, 45 percent).  Of those 54 providers, 40 have returned consumption data (34 percent).  And of those that have returned consumption data, 25 have had the data converted into a format usable by BEACon.  Both Vectren and Citizens Energy Group have returned consumption data.

The next major tasks are re-establishing data request procedures with NIPSCO, IPL, I&M, and Duke.  Data requests to the remaining electric and natural gas fuel providers will continue, as will converting the returned consumption data into a BEACon friendly format.

Update: consumption data has been entered for 170 non-investor owned utility customers consisting of over 6,000 meter readings at this time.