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.

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...

Revised NACs for 2011-2012 Billing Analysis report

source: nflspinzone.com

Do you want the good news or the bad news first?  

I tend to vote for the bad news first.

Last spring when the Production reports were being generated there was a significant flaw with the weather normalization that affected nearly a third of the homes being modeled.  No, it wasn't a bug in BEACon, no there wasn't a formatting error with the consumption data from the utility companies.  

I forgot to use current weather data from NOAA...

Fortunately, for the majority of the homes, there was only one month where there was no weather data to help normalize the consumption data.  However, since NIPSCO provided consumption data for their customers in early 2014, there were many, many more clients affected by the lack of weather data.

Acting on feedback and independent investigation from a small handful of persistent Weatherizers, a review of the old consumption data with more current weather data was done.  And now comes the good news.

The average net natural gas savings during that evaluation period wasn't a tepid 15.4%, but a healthier 18.4%.  The average net natural gas savings went from 163 therms up to 200 therms.

In all, 10 weatherization providers were affected.  Nearly all had significant increases in their average net natural gas savings:

• Area Five
• original: 5.9%
• revised: 28.3%
• Area IV
• original: 16.9%
• revised: 23.1%
• CANI
• original: 10.9%
• revised: 27%
• Human Services
• original: 17.3%
• revised: 18.6%
• North Central CAA
• original: 15.9%
• revised: 25.5%
• Northwest CAA
• original: 14.9%
• revised: 23.3%
• Real Services
• original: 7.9%
• revised: 15.8%
• Housing Opportunities of Warsaw
• original: 7.2%
• revised: 17.4%
• Indiana Builders Association
• original: 10.3%
• revised: 13.2%
• Miami County YMCA
• original: 17.3%
• revised: 23.7%

Pre-weatherization consumption data is live!

Any Indiana weatherization program managers stumbling upon this post, I've got good news.  Well, news at the very least. 


Pre-weatherization consumption data has been uploaded for over 40,000 EAP clients who are also Vectren or NIPSCO customers.  Which means most programs will have some pre-weatherization normalized annual consumption (Pre NAC) showing up when they look at their wait lists. 


Pre NAC is also on display in the Wait List search tool (although in a slightly less functional format, no sorting here). 


It's only taken over a decade, but there is finally pre-Wx consumption information at your (somewhat easy) disposal.  Sorry for the delay.  Feel free to send any feedback my or IHCDA's way...

2011-2012 Indiana Billing Analysis Report

The 2011-2012 Billing Analysis report has been released.  Some of the highlights/key stats:

• Indiana's net natural gas savings was 163 therms (+/- 6 therms), a savings of 15.4%, (+/- .6%).
• WICAA's weatherization program in Brazil, IN had the highest net natural gas savings, averaging 338 therms in net natural gas savings, a reduction of 33%.
• The average total electric home saved about 1,500 kWh after being weatherized.
• The average 'local burn' home (a home heated with natural gas, lp gas, fuel oil, wood, something burned on the premise to create heat, you get the point...) saved an average of 776 kWh if it has some manner of air conditioning.  If the house had no air conditioning, a local burn home saved an average of 519 kWh after being weatherized.

Those results are based on the actual energy consumption of over 1,800 weatherized homes and nearly 4,800 energy assistance clients.

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.

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.

Preliminary BEACon results - Vectren

While little bits of missing data are being collected and sent back, BEACon has been put through a couple test runs with limited datasets.  Due to Vectren's fantastic cooperation by providing a speedy and secure turn-around for data, the early test runs are all based on Vectren customers.  That said, here are some preliminary rankings of top savers:
 

 

 



Please bear in mind that these savings results are gross results.  The provider savings results will almost definitely be lower after factoring in the comparison groups for each provider when the final provider reports are completed. 

 

 

 

Again, these percent savings results are gross, without any comparison group factored in.  So the savings results will be a bit lower (or could be totally different if your provider has other natural gas companies that have not been analyzed - NIPSCO, Ohio Valley Gas, Citizens Gas, etc.).

 

Preliminary provider reports will be coming out and sent to the providers very soon based on these initial runs.  Hopefully the feedback they provide will be more relevant being distributed before March!

 



BEACon is out of beta!

The first test run of consumption data from the 2011 - 2012 evaluation period was run on a small section of data from Vectren this morning.  Another larger run should be completed next week.  The quicker the additional information comes back in from all the CAPs, the quicker the formal requests for data can be made to all the utility vendors. 

I will do my best to share the weather normalized consumption data with Roeing so it can be fed back into the Weatherization database's waiting list in a timely manner!

Beginnings of the 2011-2012 Billing Analysis report

The 2011-2012 billing analysis report is slowing inching forward.  Requests for missing information have been sent out to program managers.  Once those have all been returned, the utility data requests can begin.  In the mean time, here is a breakdown of provider production during the reporting period.

Fifty seven percent of the homes weatherized were done by the legacy providers and 43% were weatherized by the new providers.  The six most productive providers weatherized about half (50.5%) of all the homes in Indiana:

• Indiana Builders Association - 1,852
• Northwest Indiana Community Action - 481
• Hoosier Energy REC - 412
• Real Services - 375
• Community Action of Northeast Indiana - 287
• South Central Community Action Program - 280