Utility Program Development and Evaluation

Utilities have been making significant investments to encourage the adoption of demand-side management (DSM) initiatives to reduce energy consumption, demand, and GHG emissions. However, developing programs from scratch or evaluating the effectiveness of those already in place can be challenging and time-consuming.

Having Prism support in developing and assessing the performance of your DSM programs will enable you to make informed decisions regarding future improvements.

How Prism can help

Prism can assist utilities in developing and evaluating the effectiveness of their energy efficiency and carbon reduction programs so they can make confident decisions on how to improve them.

By applying various methodologies, we analyze both quantitative and qualitative data to provide utilities with a comprehensive evaluation of their programs’ outcomes and impact.

Our services include:

Existing Program Review

• Monitoring and verification (M&V) analysis of program savings impact.
• Participant surveys and interviews with program stakeholders.
• Research into other existing programs, solutions, or guidance documents.
• Recommendations for program changes and improvements.

New Program Development

• Scenario modelling and analysis.
• Stakeholder workshops, interviews, and other forms of engagement.
• Research into other existing programs, solutions, or guidance documents.
• Draft program outlines.
• Analysis of costing and benefits.

This is what makes our approach unique

Expertise

Our team comprises engineers, designers, facilitators, and climate action and sustainability specialists. Prism’s ability to draw on our team’s varied strengths and experiences and to work collaboratively with organizations helps us tailor our services to best meet client needs. The experience of our team members enables us to assist utilities in evaluating their energy efficiency or carbon reduction programs effectively.

Some of our work includes partnering with FortisBC to measure the success of their Commercial Energy Management Program, which involves measuring the performance of 25 energy specialists who have implemented various energy conservation measures, including boiler and pipe replacements, controls and DHW upgrades, and heat recovery projects.

We’ve also supported the City of Kamloops in tracking the impact of a Water Meter Installation Program and evaluated the total energy savings of FortisBC’s Efficient Boiler Program (EBP) in over 130 sites.

Multidisciplinary Approaches

At Prism, our diverse in-house team allows us to tackle issues with multiple approaches.

Our Energy team performs technical analyses on existing program data or creates models to study the potential impacts of future programs.

With the support of our Sustainability team, we conduct surveys and interviews to gain further insights into how participants and other stakeholders engage with the program. We also provide coaching sessions and training to improve the skills of the energy management team.

Once the program has been evaluated, our experienced Electrical, Mechanical and Sustainability teams can provide site and project-specific solutions for optimizing energy performance issues as well as assessing low participant engagement that may be causing poor program results.

PUMA

To help support our program evaluation projects, we often use PUMA, a web-based utility monitoring software and service developed in-house by our engineers, to consolidate utility consumption, costs, and emissions in a single place. By applying weather-normalized Cumulative Sum (CUSUM) graphs, we can quickly and easily review the results of various DSM programs.

Contact us to discuss how our Utility Program Development and Evaluation services can best support your organization.