HomeMy WebLinkAboutStaff Report 6836
City of Palo Alto (ID # 6836)
City Council Staff Report
Report Type: Consent Calendar Meeting Date: 5/9/2016
City of Palo Alto Page 1
Summary Title: Georgetown University Energy Prize (GUEP) Fund Allocation
Title: Approval of Allocation of $1 Million to the Palo Alto Unified School
District in the Event the City of Palo Alto Wins the $5 Million Georgetown
University Energy Prize
From: City Manager
Lead Department: Utilities
Recommendation
Staff recommends that City Council approve the allocation of $1 million of the $5 million
Georgetown University Energy Prize (GUEP) award funds to Palo Alto Unified School District
(PAUSD), should the City of Palo Alto win the GUEP competition.
All award funds, including those allocated to PAUSD, would be used in accordance with GUEP
competition guidelines (Attachment A).
Executive Summary
The City of Palo Alto is currently one of the 50 small- and medium-sized communities
throughout the United States that are competing for the Georgetown University Energy Prize.
The winner of the GUEP is chosen not just for energy savings during the competition period, but
on criteria such as how innovative and replicable the programs are and the level and diversity
of community engagement. Getting PAUSD and the students actively involved should increase
the City’s chances of winning the prize since the selection criterion awards points based on
student engagement and students are ideally situated to influence energy savings both in their
homes and at their schools. In addition, school programs are broadly transferrable as schools
are typically a nexus for communication in communities across the nation.
Since schools can be one a very effective entry point for energy efficiency program adoption
and success, staff proposes to direct 20% of the prize money ($1 million of the $5 million prize
money) to the school district, should Palo Alto win the competition. Staff believes that
announcing this allocation to schools would increase engagement with the school community in
efforts to reduce overall energy use. Staff feels that this will stimulate community involvement
and increase the City’s chances of winning the prize. Prize funds allocated to PAUSD would have
City of Palo Alto Page 2
to be used for the installation of either energy efficiency and/or renewable energy projects in
accordance the competition guidelines.
Background
Palo Alto is a semi-finalist—along with 50 other small- and medium-sized communities
nationwide—in the Georgetown University Energy Prize (GUEP) competition. Participation in
the GUEP competition was endorsed by City Council in a December 2013 City Council meeting.
As of the end of September 2015, Palo Alto was ranked 15th in the competition. Palo Alto
hosted one of five regional GUEP workshops to share ideas on March 17.
The City has always worked closely with PAUSD and, when Palo Alto entered the GUEP
competition, the Sustainable Schools Committee, which is a mixture of District employees,
parents and volunteers, and local non-profits brainstormed how PAUSD could help the City’s
GUEP effort and came up with the idea of providing part of the prize money to the schools. City
Utilities and Zero Waste employees are regular attendees of the Sustainable Schools
Committee as well.
A GUEP representative strongly supported the idea as Georgetown wants to see students
involved in the competition. Currently staff is working with a group of interns from Palo Alto
High School who are helping to market the City’s energy saving programs to students and their
families.
Discussion
The goal of the competition is to encourage communities to develop energy (electricity and
natural gas) saving programs that are innovative, replicable, scalable, and continual, thereby
reducing per capita energy use. The first place prize of $5 million will be awarded based on
seven weighted selection criteria, as follows:
Energy Savings (25 points): The reduction in energy consumption for the single-family
residential, multi-family, municipal, and schools sectors between January 2015 and
December 2016 compared to baseline years of 2013-2014
Innovation (15 points): Evaluation of new, different, and effective programs
Replicability (15 points): Extent to which the programs are transferable to other
communities
Future Performance (10 points): Likelihood that the energy savings will continue and be
permanent
Equitable Access, Community/Stakeholder Engagement (10 points): Whether the
energy saving programs reach all demographic groups in the community and the level of
diversity of the community members engaged in the programs
Education (10 points): The extent to which the local school district students are
engaged and whether there is an educational component for both students and
residents
Overall quality and success (15 points): All of the above and anything else!
City of Palo Alto Page 3
To address these contest criteria, and to create energy saving programs with the highest
participation rates among Utility customers, staff is working with schools to engage students as
messengers and also to encourage participation by students—and their families—to reduce
energy usage in homes and schools. Announcing that schools would get $1 million (20%) of the
prize funds will provide a significant incentive for schools to actively participate in the
competition.
The main reasons staff recommends allocating $1 million of the $5 million GUEP money to
PAUSD are described below.
1. Alignment with GUEP competition criteria
The GUEP prize is based on energy savings from 1) residents, 2) City-owned facilities and 3)
public schools. PAUSD can play a large role in helping the City’s prize bid by finding savings at
their facilities and encouraging students to find savings at home. As noted above, education is
10% of the GUEP evaluation criteria. Involving students in marketing efforts for energy-saving
programs serves the dual purpose of incorporating an element of education into the programs
and increasing the effectiveness of programs by reaching a large number of community
members through the students and their families. Georgetown University made it very clear in
the Competition Guidelines that “In keeping with Georgetown University’s role as an
educational institution, GUEP competitors are required to involve their local school system, and
the effectiveness of that involvement is one of the criteria for selecting winners.”
2. Serving the Community
Funds for schools benefit the community at large by supporting improvements that have lasting
impacts, reducing operating cost, and providing learning tools for schools with new
technologies. Saving energy saves money—and it benefits the community when schools can
spend its funds for things that will help students. The prize money could also be used for solar
photovoltaic systems on PAUSD buildings, an idea that has been discussed for over 15 years and
would further reduce energy costs.
3. Motivation of PAUSD
PAUSD has been a great partner in promoting efficiency. They recently received the Mayor’s
Green Business Leader Award for having 14 schools become Energy Star certified and a Silicon
Valley Water Conservation Award. Staff feels that “The Million Dollar Promise” can be a great
marketing tool to help motivate the community, and staff is working with a variety of school
stakeholders that are positioned to leverage interest in this potential funding. Without a highly
motivated school district, Palo Alto’s chances of winning the GUEP prize are diminished.
Next Steps
The competition goes from January 2015 to December 2016, with the winner expected to be
announced in late summer of 2017. If Council approves the proposed allocation of funds if the
City wins the GUEP, staff will announce the plan publicly. Announcements would also be made
in school publications, which are widely read by residents.
City of Palo Alto Page 4
Policy Impact
Promoting energy savings is consistent with the Council-adopted Long-term Electric Acquisition
Plan (Staff Report 2710), the Gas Long-term Utility Plan (Staff Report 2552), and support
achievement of the Council-adopted 10-year electric and gas efficiency goals (Staff Report
3358).
Resource Impact
There is no resource impact if the City does not win GUEP competition except for staff efforts to
make the announcement. If the City wins the prize, then $1 million of total $5 million prize
would go to schools for energy efficiency and renewable investments consistent with the GUEP
guidelines and $4 million would go to the City for programs consistent with the GUEP
guidelines.
Environmental Impact
Approval of allocating a portion of the potential GUEP prize funds to the PAUSD does not meet
the California Environmental Quality Act’s (CEQA) definition of a “project” set forth in California
Public Resources Code sec. 21065, thus no environmental review is required.
Attachments:
Attachment A:Georgetown University Energy Prize Competition Guidelines (PDF)
The Georgetown University Energy Prize
Competition Guidelines
Version 8.2, 5 May 2015
Introduction
Energy efficiency is the single most important source of energy available to the world’s
economies for years to come. To help tap that resource, Georgetown University’s Program for
Science in the Public Interest, Global Social Enterprise Initiative, and Environment Initiative are
launching the Georgetown University Energy Prize (GUEP), a projected $5M national incentive
prize for small to medium size residential communities. The competition will challenge
communities to achieve innovative, replicable, scalable and continual reductions in the energy-
consumed by residential and municipal customers from local natural gas and electric utilities.
For a brief overview, see the Competition Summary in these Guidelines and also the GUEP
website http://www.guep.org.
The GUEP will:
Challenge a large number of communities to work together with their local governments
and utilities to create and begin implementing long-term plans for the continual
improvement of energy efficiency;
Stimulate replicable innovations in community energy efficiency;
Educate the public about the total energy and environmental costs of the full fuel cycle;
Educate the public and engage students in energy efficiency issues, methods, and
benefits, and encourage lasting behavior change;
Help to grow markets for products and services that facilitate energy efficiency and
renewable, clean energy production;
Reward the community as a whole, and not specific individuals.
This document provides a description of the prize design and requirements for competitors.
What’s New in Version 8.2?
In addition to minor clarifications and corrections, this draft release of the Competition Guidelines
includes the following significant changes with respect to Version 8.0:
Clarifications regarding the identification of residential accounts and the required
accuracy (see “Residential Accounts”);
Revised definition of the basic figure of merit, which is now the Adjusted Source Energy
Use (ASEU); this includes an adjustment for the energy consumed in the full fuel cycle
(so-called “source energy”); this change is being made to better align the competition
with advice from energy experts and the EPA; see “Basic Figure of Merit (Adjusted
Source Energy Use per Residential Bill”);
Revised templates and procedures for data reporting, and discussion of data
exceptions (see “Format of Data Provided by Utilities”);
ATTACHMENT A
2
Competition Summary
The Georgetown University Energy Prize (GUEP) challenges U.S. communities to work together
with their local governments and utilities in order to develop and begin implementing plans for
innovative, replicable, scalable and continual reductions in the energy-per-residential-account
consumed from local natural gas and electric utilities. Communities are encouraged (but not
required) to strengthen their plan via partnerships with businesses, foundations, local colleges
and universities, as well as by exploiting other resources (see “Energy Efficiency Resources for
Communities”).
For this competition, a “community” is defined geographically by the limits of a municipality – a
town, city, or county that has corporate status and local government. All small to medium
municipalities in the U.S.A. with populations between 5,000 and 250,000 were eligible to apply.1
The competition comprises four stages over a three year period that started April, 2014. It
challenges communities to develop a long-term energy efficiency plan and to demonstrate initial
effectiveness. The winning community will receive a projected $5M prize purse, to be spent on
energy-efficiency programs that reward the community as a whole, for example to ensure the
continuing implementation of long term plan.
Here is an overview of the GUEP competition stages (for details and discussions of issues, see
subsequent Sections, including FAQs):
Pre-Launch – Letter of Intent (July, 2013 – April, 2014) Fifty-two communities submitted a
Letter of Intent (LOI) during this stage of the competition, which is now closed.
Stage 1 - Applications (April – July, 2014): Using a template provided by the GUEP,
communities submitted basic applications. After a review by the Energy Prize team, credible
applications that included commitments from local government, utilities, and community
organizations in eligible communities have been selected as Quarterfinalists and invited to
compete in Stage 2 by submitting detailed Program Plans.
Stage 2 - Quarterfinalist Energy Efficiency Program Plans (August – November, 2014):
On 10 November, 2014, Quarterfinalists submitted a detailed Program Plan for their
community’s energy-saving program. Basic Plan requirements included: Plans should be long-
term Plans, with commitments by residential associations, governments, institutions, or
businesses in the community to policies and projects that will yield continual improvement.
1 These limits of community size include approximately 65% of the U.S. population.
3
Energy-saving Plans could be a part of a larger pre-existing plan that the community has begun,
or they could be new plans that will be implemented specifically to meet the GUEP challenge.
In addition, Quarterfinalist communities had opportunities to apply for seed grants from GUEP
partners and other organizations to help them implement their Plan.
Based on the submitted Program Plans and seed-funding proposals, the Energy Prize team has
invited 50 communities to compete as Semifinalists in Stage 3.
Stage 3 - Semifinalist Performance Competition (January, 2015 – December, 2016): The
Semifinalists will compete for 2 years to reduce their utility-supplied energy consumption in a
manner that is likely to yield continuing improvements within their own community and replication
in other communities. Consumption over the 2 year period will be compared with baseline
consumption over the 2 years preceding the start of the Semifinals (i.e. 2013-2014).
For purposes of this prize, community energy consumption measurements are restricted to
energy supplied by gas and electric utilities directly to all residential and municipal customers. It
is not a requirement that communities have both gas and electric utility services.
Stage 4 - Finalist Selection, Judging and Awards (January – June, 2017): Up to 10 Finalists
will be selected based primarily on energy-saving performance during Stage 3. 2 These Finalists
will be invited to submit Final Reports covering relevant aspects of the community’s plan,
performance, and future prospects. The Judging Panel will score the final reports in specific,
weighted categories and select the winners based on a combination of these scores and the
Stage 3 energy-saving performance.
The highest-ranking community will be awarded first place, with the requirement that the prize
purse benefit the community at large in accordance with spending proposed in the community’s
Stage 2 Program Plan. Second and third place will also be awarded; these additional winners
will receive special recognition and additional benefits, which may include cash purses.
Eligible Communities
For purposes of the GUEP, a “community” is normally defined geographically by the limits of a
single municipality – a town, city or county that has corporate status and local government. All
municipalities in the U.S.A. with populations between 5,000 and 250,000 were eligible to apply.
Eligibility was based on the 2010 Census.
We also considered applications from “combined communities”: multiple, contiguous
municipalities that together have a total population between 5,000 and 250,000. The geographic
border of such a combined community must surround a single, contiguous region that contains
the entirety of every participating municipality, and no portion of a non-participating municipality.
Such combined communities had to provide additional information in their application as follows:
Evidence that the communities can work together successfully (ideally by citing
previous cooperation);
The Judging Panel will select the appropriate number of Finalist communities based on the performance data and the
final judging criteria outlined in this document.
4
An explanation of how the local governments, utilities, and relevant community
organizations will work together on GUEP.
A description of how the purse would be shared or jointly-used, if won.
In the case of communities with overlapping jurisdictions (e.g., both a town and its county apply),
only one community could apply and compete. If however, every municipality within a county
commits to participating, then the county and its municipalities could be considered as a
“combined community”, discussed above.
Energy Consumption Reporting During Competition Stage 3 (Semifinal)
Data from Local Utilities
In order to compete for the GUEP, a community must obtain the cooperation of all natural gas
and electric utilities that serve the community (note a community need not have both gas and
electric services). The utilities must have or commit to develop the capability of reporting
quarterly to GUEP the total (aggregate) monthly energy directly supplied by natural gas and
electric utilities to all of their residential and municipal customers in the community, as well as
the monthly number of residential bills issued, i.e.:
ERE =
total residential kWh of electrical energy billed in a given month
(regardless of the number of different billing dates with the month).
EME = total municipal kWh of electrical energy billed in a given month
(regardless of the number of different billing dates with the month)
NE = number of residential electric bills issued during that month
ERG = total residential Therms of gas energy billed in a given month (regardless
of the number of different billing dates with the month)
EMG = total municipal Therms of gas energy billed in a given month (regardless
of the number of different billing dates with the month)
NG = number of residential gas bills issued during that month
Utilities will report electrical energy in kWh and gas energy in Therms, which GUEP will convert
to kBTUs using the conversion factors 3.412 and 100 respectively.3
Note that aggregate energy consumption data will be reported separately for the residential and
municipal sectors. (For a discussion of the limitation to residential and municipal sectors, see
the FAQ “Why restrict the energy consumption to residential and municipal?”). Quarterly reports
are due within 45 days of the quarter’s end (see timeline on p. 18).
Communities must work with utilities to ensure accurate, timely, data reporting to GUEP.
For purposes of the GUEP, a given month’s aggregate energy use is defined as the total energy
billed during that month. That is, if a bill is issued anytime between the first and last days of the
3 https://portfoliomanager.energystar.gov/pdf/reference/Thermal%20Conversions.pdf
5
month, the billed energy is counted in that month’s aggregate energy use. Aggregate energy
use (vs. use in individual buildings or residences) is used for simplicity and to avoid privacy
concerns. Note that energy billed during a given month is not the same as energy actually
consumed during a given month, because energy billed is affected by such things as billing
periods, estimated readings, missed readings, erroneous readings, etc. It is, however, easy for
utilities to determine, and it’s a sufficiently good estimate of energy consumed to serve the
purposes of the Performance Dashboard. Moreover, final scoring will be based on the
aggregate billed energy for the full 24 months of the competition period, which will be very close
to the aggregate energy used.
The first quarterly report must include the community’s baseline energy use; i.e., the energy data
(listed above) for the 24 months prior to the start (i.e., for 2013-2014). For a discussion of the
required data format, see “Format of Data Provided by Utilities.”.
To enable energy-cost estimation in the Performance Dashboard, we will use the average cost
per electrical and per gas energy unit over the 12 months preceding the start of Stage 3
Performance Competition. Accordingly, the first quarterly report must also include the average
gas and electricity costs (per energy unit) during 2014 (i.e., averaged over the entire year). It is
up to the community to obtain these two average costs – e.g. from the utilities, from public data,
or from some combination. Since the cost data will be used in the Performance Dashboard for
educational purposes only, and will not be used in any way for performance scoring, the cost
information not have to be exact. Similarly, this baseline cost information will be used throughout
the competition – i.e., it won’t be adjusted to reflect possible rate changes. Communities are
encouraged to let the GUEP know if any data reporting problems arise during the competition;
so that we can do our best to resolve them.
We recognize that data collection is non-trivial, and that communities may have special
circumstances that make it difficult in ways that we may not have anticipated. We want to work
with you to address these circumstances. If you have not already done so, please ask your
utilities to fill out the Data Collection Methodologies Form (downloadable at www.guep.org/rules-
timeline), and then send it to us along with a discussion of any difficult issues that arise.
Apart from the general incentive of good community relations, some utilities will have additional
motivations to support GUEP communities. This is clearly the case for publically owned utilities,
but it’s also true for many investor-owned utilities. For example, if a utility has a regulatory-
approved Energy Efficiency Program, cooperation with the community’s GUEP effort should
lead to increased customer participation in the utility’s Program. Another point is that most
utilities have a desire to get their customers to engage with them online, something that’s likely
to occur naturally in the case of GUEP competitors.
Residential Accounts
Since utilities generally have a specific billing rate for residential accounts, most residential
customers can be identified by selecting bills that satisfy two criteria:
(a) The service address is in the municipality. Ways in which this can be determined include:
Selecting for the municipality name in the address to which the bill is sent (or
the address where the meter is installed).
Selecting via a list of zip codes.
6
Selecting via a list of tax districts.
Note that units of counting like zip codes or tax districts at the boundary of the
municipality may extend beyond the municipality. It is acceptable to exclude or include
such counting units provided that the population excluded or the additional population
covered does not exceed 5% of the total population of counting units that are entirely
within the municipality.
In general, for any proposed method of determining service addresses, communities
must show that it is accurate to within 5%
(b) The bill is computed using residential rates or multifamily residential rates
Note that this selection will include both renters and owners. Compared to owners, renters
typically have limited abilities to install retrofits, install energy-saving appliances, and take other
measures. But renters are part of the community, and there are energy-saving measures that
they can take.
Apartment buildings that are charged residential or multifamily rates will be included in the above
selection.
In apartment and condominium (or co-op) buildings where residents are billed individually, there
will usually be one or more additional accounts that are billed for energy consumed in the building
infrastructure (common areas, parking, etc.). Ideally, these accounts should also be included by
enumeration (unless they are charged residential rates, in which case they will be included in
the selection described above, but if including them is difficult it is permissible to exclude them,
subject to the overall aggregate energy error rate discussed below,
Regarding apartment buildings, complexes, or resort communities that do not have residential
sub-meters billed at residential rates, in some cases a utility can identify the accounts via a
special rate class. In other cases, the accounts are charged a standard commercial rate and
can’t be distinguished from non-residential accounts. Given the importance of widespread
community engagement (see “Final Report” and “Final Judging”), such accounts can be
identified by enumeration, so a list can be provided to the utility for inclusion in the residential
energy aggregate. We prefer that communities take this approach, but we recognize that doing
so may be onerous or impossible. Accordingly, it is permissible to exclude apartment buildings
that are charged commercial rates, again subject to the overall aggregate energy error rate
discussed below. .
Hotels, including long-term stay hotels, may be excluded.
Although we encourage the involvement of local colleges and universities, on-campus housing
is excluded (primarily because billing practices generally make it difficult to report their energy
use). Students and faculty who live off-campus are included (and would not be distinguished
from other residents).
Military bases (including on-base military housing) are excluded. Military personnel who live
off-base are included (and would not be distinguished from other residents).
In addition to the cases discussed above, other special circumstances may make it impossible
or extremely difficult to identify \ accounts that provide energy to residential users. In general,
7
communities must be able to show that accounts excluded or included do not amount to more
than 5% of the total aggregate residential energy that is reported to GUEP.
Note that, should the community advance to the Finals, the data collection procedures will be
subject to an audit.
Municipal Accounts
Municipal Accounts - Definition
For purposes of the GUEP, municipal energy use is defined as the aggregate energy billed to
accounts that purchase gas or electric energy satisfying any of these criteria:
The account is paid for by the municipality or by a government entity that is governed
by or reports to the municipality.
The energy is consumed by municipal employees in the course of their work as well as
by the facilities in which they work.
The energy is consumed in delivering municipal services to the community.
The energy is consumed by contractors working for the municipality and by their
relevant facilities, provided that the municipality has an ability to influence consumption
directly or indirectly.
Note that relevant accounts must be included whether or not the municipality actually pays a bill
for that account. For example, some municipalities have franchise agreements with utilities that
only require the municipality to pay bills for revenue-generating buildings (e.g., parking garages).
Examples of municipal energy use include:
All offices and buildings used by the municipality, whether owned, leased, or rented by
the municipality, regardless of whether the facilities are located within the municipal
boundaries. – examples include., municipal offices, police stations, fire stations, public
schools, libraries, parking garages, water treatment and delivery facilities, chilled water
facilities, airports, etc.;
Vacant offices and buildings that are owned, owned, leased, or rented by the
municipality.
Infrastructure such as street lighting, traffic lighting, etc.;
Parking garages;
Parks and recreation;
All (K-12) public, charter, and private schools located within the municipal boundaries
and attended by community residents should be included, whether or not the
municipality owns the buildings, pays the utility bills, or has education-related jurisdiction
over the schools; If the utilities require permission from a school district (or from schools
themselves) to include their energy use in the municipal aggregate, it is up to the
municipality to secure permission. In special circumstances (e.g., privately-operated
schools that refuse to cooperate), a school may be excluded, but in each case
8
permission must be obtained from GUEP. Overall, excluded schools cannot together
serve more than 20% of the school-aged children in the community.
Public housing that is not charged a residential rate;
Municipal energy use does not include energy used by:
State, and Federal buildings that happen to be in the municipality; likewise County
buildings unless the GUEP entry is the County
Military bases;
Colleges and universities;
Preschools (i.e., before kindergarten) that are not located within a K-12 school.
K-12 schools of any type that are within municipal boundaries but are not attended by
community residents
Buildings owned by the municipality but leased to others (and not used by the
municipality or in ways that deliver municipal services);
Utilities owned by the municipality.
Accounts paid by a municipal transit authority;
Accounts that pay for energy used in transportation.
Public housing that is charged a residential rate (these accounts are to be included in
the residential energy aggregate);
For some municipal accounts, it may be that only a portion of the energy is used as specified
above. Ideally, if the relevant utilities can implement it, the community should propose an
equitable method of apportioning the energy use. We recognize, however, that utilities may be
unable or unwilling to include only a portion of an account in the energy aggregations. In such
cases, it is permissible to exclude the account if the community can show that this portion is less
than 20% of the energy billed to the account. However, we prefer that such accounts be
included, especially in cases where the other tenants are likely to be cooperative – e.g., when a
facility is used by both city and county staff (and it’s the city that is competing). Other examples
include facilities for water delivery and wastewater treatment.
For some municipal or residential buildings, cooling or heating is achieved in part or whole via a
chilled water or steam loop serving multiple buildings, thereby reducing the building’s
requirement for energy consumed directly from utilities. However, if the chilled water or steam
is produced by a municipally-owned facility, then the energy consumption of that facility will be
included in the municipality’s total energy consumption (assuming the facility consumes gas or
electric energy). Regardless, this is not likely to be a significant issue since judging is based on
the percentage change in energy consumption. If in fact it’s a significant issue, the community
must bring it to the attention of GUEP.
If any bills are based on negotiated pricing rather than measured use, these should be identified
and explained, and the community should propose how to handle this in the competition. For
example, street lighting is sometimes handled this way, with municipality being charged per
streetlight per year.
If it is ambiguous or uncertain whether an account should be included in the municipal energy
use aggregation, the accounts must be included unless the exclusion is agreed to by GUEP.
9
Municipal Accounts - Identification
Since municipal accounts typically do not have a unique, special rate (e.g., distinct from
residential, commercial, or industrial rates), it’s unlikely that a rate-based approach can be used
to identify the municipal accounts. However, since there will be a relatively small number of
relevant accounts, the municipal accounts can be identified by enumeration. It is the
responsibility of the municipality to provide the local utilities with a list of all such accounts or,
with assistance from the utilities, to select another method for accurately identifying the accounts.
As is the case with residential accounts, the list or method will be subject to audit if the community
advances to the Finals.
If existing but previously-overlooked municipal accounts are discovered during the Stage 3
Performance Competition, they should be included in the energy aggregation for the remainder
of the competition.
If new municipal accounts are established during the Stage 3 Performance Competition, they
should be included in the aggregation thenceforth, and reported to GUEP via an amended list
of municipal accounts, together with an updated report on the aggregate energy used during the
baseline period and used since the start of the competition.
Format of Data Provided by Utilities
To deliver data for the 24 months of baseline energy use and for the quarterly reports of monthly
energy use during the 24 months of Stage 3 (Semifinalist Performance Competition), utilities
must upload a standard GUEP CSV template. Two approaches are available. Large utilities
that serve multiple communities may prefer to upload a single CSV file that reports both gas and
electric energy usage for all competing communities in their jurisdiction. Smaller utilities may
prefer to upload a CSV file that reports one type of energy usage (gas or electric) for a single
community. Both types of templates are available at https://guep.org/about-the-prize/, and data
will be uploaded at https://guep.org/energydata. Communities should contact the GUEP staff
quickly if their utilities have any issues with the available templates.
For simplicity, accuracy, and accountability, GUEP’s strong preference is that the CSV files be
uploaded directly by utilities. However, we understand that unavoidable technical, legal, or policy
limitations may prevent direct uploading, requiring that the CSV files prepared by utilities be
transmitted to the community leaders for uploading into the GUEP system. In such cases, with
the prior approval of GUEP, communities will be able to create accounts at
https://guep.org/energydata/ and upload the CSV files that they receive from their utilities.
Regardless of whether the community or the utility uploads the data, the utility must retain
original copies of the data generated for the competition until December 31, 2017. This
original data must be available to the GUEP team upon request. The GUEP team does
recognize that additional paperwork may be required for a utility to release the data directly to
GUEP, if requested.
In addition, both the community and the utility should – to the extent possible – retain any
supplementary data, records, or internal communications related to data collection and
submission for future verification and auditing, if required by GUEP at any point in the
competition, especially during the Finalist round.
10
Data Exceptions
GUEP recognizes that reported monthly energy use may have inaccuracies or errors –
examples include estimated (vs. actual) meter readings, inadvertently excluded readings,
inadvertent multiple readings, etc. In most cases, such inaccuracies will be self-correcting when
reports for later months are submitted, and therefore will not affect final scoring since that is
averaged over 2-year periods (see “Selection of Finalists”). However, if there is any reason to
suspect or believe that accumulated errors or other reporting difficulties may result in more than
a 5% error in the total reported energy use for either the 2-year baseline or 2-year competition
periods, that must be reported to GUEP in detail. Otherwise, utilities will simply need to affirm in
writing that there’s no reason to suspect such errors in reporting.
Community Generation of Electricity
In some communities, the electric power drawn from utilities by certain residential or municipal
accounts is reduced by locally-generated power (e.g., rooftop solar, wind turbines, etc.). Such
reductions will automatically be reflected in the aggregate energy billing reports produced by
utilities, and will therefore improve the communities’ energy-use score.
In the event that such local-generation produces excess power – i.e., more power than
consumed by the relevant account – some utilities provide a mechanism (often called “net
metering”) through which the utility purchases the excess power and provides a financial credit
to the relevant account. Unfortunately, it’s not straightforward (or, in some cases, not possible)
for utilities to convert the financial credit to an energy credit. Moreover, not all utilities support
net metering (i.e., excess energy is not fed back to the grid). So in fairness to all communities,
GUEP does not attempt to provide credit for locally-generated power that exceeds the relevant
account’s needs, especially since typically most of the benefit from such local-generation is in
reducing the power drawn from the utility.
In some cases, a community or municipality may operate facilities (e.g. solar or wind turbine
farms) that sell energy directly to a utility rather than reduce the energy consumed from the utility.
Such facilities are valuable and important because they can reduce the community’s overall
environmental footprint (e.g. helping a community to reach a net-zero goal), but do not improve
the efficiency of energy use and are not included in GUEP energy-use scoring They do not
actually reduce the amount of energy consumed from the utility, which is the focus of GUEP.
Basic Figure of Merit (Adjusted Source Energy Use per Residential Bill)
The basic GUEP figure of merit for scoring community energy use is the Adjusted Source Energy
Use per Residential Bill. The (non-adjusted) Source Energy Use per Residential Bill is defined
as
SEU = SE * (EUE / NE) + SG * (EUG / NG)
where
EUE = total residential and municipal BTUs of electrical energy billed in a given
month (regardless of the number of different billing dates with the month); in
technical terms, this is “site energy”;
11
= ERE + EME (these values ae delivered to GUEP by community utilities.
(see Data from Local Utilities)
NE = number of residential electric bills issued during that month; this value is
delivered to GUEP by community utilities.
EUG = total residential and municipal BTUs of gas energy billed in a given month
(regardless of the number of different billing dates with the month); again,
this is “site energy”;
= ERG + EMG (these values ae delivered to GUEP by community utilities.
(see Data from Local Utilities)
NG = number of residential gas bills issued during that month; this value is
delivered to GUEP by community utilities.
SE = source energy factor for electricity (national average – see below)
SG = source energy factor for gas (national average – see below)
As mentioned earlier (see “Data from Local Utilities”), energy billed during a given month is not
the same as energy actually consumed during a given month. We use energy billed because
that’s what utilities can easily determine, and because the aggregate energy billed over the full
24 months of the competition period will be very close to the aggregate energy used.
To provide fair comparisons between communities, the figure of merit is normalized to adjust for
population size. Ideally, this would be done by using energy use per capita, but that’s not
possible because census figures are several years old and also because there’s no accurate
way to measure changes in population size during the 24 month competition period. So GUEP
uses the number of residential utility bills issued as a proxy for the population of the community,
analogous to the number of households in the community – although not exact, it’s easy to
measure and will rise and fall with changes in population of the community. Note that we also
normalize the municipal energy use by the number of residential bills. This is because the
municipality exists to serve the community residents, and the number of municipal accounts may
not reflect changes in residential population size. For more information, see the FAQ “Why
normalize the total residential and municipal energy use by the number of residential bills?”
Source energy differs from site energy in that source energy includes contributions from energy
production, transportation, and delivery – all important factors in the whole picture of how energy
consumption affects personal, community, and national resources. We are using the ASEU
because that’s what is recommended by energy experts and the U.S. Government, and because
an important goal of the GUEP is to educate energy consumers nationwide about the full
consequences of energy consumption.
For a more-detailed explanation of the difference between source energy and site energy,
including the rationale for why the U.S. government recommends using source energy with
national average source energy factors, see the EPA’s website here4. For additional discussion
of GUEP’s use of national (vs. regional) source energy factors, see the FAQ “Why use fixed
4 http://www.energystar.gov/buildings/facility-owners-and-managers/existing-buildings/use-portfolio-
manager/understand-metrics/difference
12
national rather than varying regional source energy factors?” For the constant, national average
source energy factors values that GUEP will use throughout the competition, see here5.
The (non-adjusted) Source Energy Use per Residential Bill is then adjusted to account for
weather differences (heating/cooling demands), yielding the Adjusted Source Energy Use per
Residential Bill (ASEU).
Both the source energy calculation and the weather normalization will be performed using EPA’s
Portfolio Manager6. Weather normalization will be based on both heating and cooling degree
days, and will be calculated by inputting the monthly values of EUE and EUG. Although Portfolio
Manager is intended primarily to benchmark the performance of a commercial building or a
portfolio of buildings, its normalization features apply generally to any input set of utility bills.
We recognize that electricity and gas do not account for all residential and municipal energy
usage, the primary omissions being oil and propane used for heating. Unfortunately,
measurable energy use is essential to the prize design, and there’s no straightforward way to
measure the use of these other energy sources with adequate accuracy.
For some of the reasoning behind this basic figure of merit, see the FAQ “Why normalize the
total residential and municipal energy use by the number of residential accounts?”
Energy Consumption Reporting – The Performance Dashboard
During the Semifinalist Performance Competition (Stage 3), the GUEP website will maintain an
energy-consumption performance “dashboard” that tracks the following:
The Adjusted Source Energy Use per Residential Bill (ASEU)
The carbon (greenhouse gas) emissions resulting from the full fuel cycle (i.e., like
source energy, including contributions from energy production, transportation, and
delivery).
The (weather-adjusted) site-energy use per residential bill, i.e.,
EU = (EUE / NE) + (EUG / NG)
with weather adjustments performed by EPA’s Portfolio Manager. As mentioned, site
energy is the actual energy consumed by the community.
The financial cost of the energy as paid by consumers. This will be estimated from the
average cost of energy that utilities report for the 12 months prior to the start of Stage 3
(see “Data from Local Utilities”).
The performance dashboard will be based on the monthly energy-consumption data provided
quarterly by utilities (see below). The dashboard will include separate displays for electrical
energy, gas energy, and total (gas + electric) energy. Graphical and dynamic, it will allow
viewers to track the performance of single communities and compare the performance of
multiple communities. It will also show the current performance relative to the performance
during the baseline (24 months prior to the Stage 3 competition). Note that while the dashboard
will compare the current competition performance to the baseline, and estimate the rankings of
communities, because the Overall Energy Score (OES) is based on 24 month averages for both
5 https://portfoliomanager.energystar.gov/pdf/reference/Source%20Energy.pdf
6 http://www.energystar.gov/buildings/facility-owners-and-managers/existing-buildings/use-portfolio-manager
13
the baseline and the competition period (see below), the figures and rankings in the dashboard
won’t show the complete competition picture until the end of the competition.
As mentioned, the full fuel cycle greenhouse gas emissions include contributions from energy
production, transportation, and delivery. For natural gas, it’s appropriate to use national
averages. For electricity, fair comparisons are highly-dependent on location; GUEP will use
estimates based on the eGRID7 location of communities:
To estimate the full fuel cycle emissions, we will use the emissions data such as provided here8
Electric and Natural Gas Vehicles
Since the GUEP is based on the residential and municipal use of energy delivered by electric
and natural gas utilities, and does not attempt to include transportation uses of energy,
widespread adoption of Electric Vehicles (EVs) and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) vehicles
could result in a significant increase in energy consumed from local utilities, and therefore could
unfairly penalize the community. In most cases, we believe that the effect would be small, so
we do not include a general mechanism to account for adoption of EVs and CNG vehicles.
7 http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-resources/egrid/index.html
8 http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/documents/egridzips/eGRID2012V1_0_year09_GHGOutputrates.pdf
14
However, if a community that has competed in Stage 3 believes that the effect would be
significant, they may offer supporting evidence and propose a method for taking the effect into
account when selecting Finalists.9 It will be up to the Judging Panel to accept or reject the
proposed method (which, if accepted, would be subject to audit). Should the community be
selected as a Finalist, the Final Report, electric and natural gas vehicles should be discussed in
detail (including the information submitted prior to Finalist selection).
Natural Disasters
Energy use data may be skewed by natural disasters, e.g., earthquakes, extreme weather,
failures of local energy production or distribution facilities, etc., GUEP will deal with these on a
case by case basis, allowing petitions from affected communities. Petitions should include a
description of the disaster, information about any official U.S. or State disaster declarations, and
a justified estimate of the effect on energy usage.
Possible remedies include extrapolation from past data, possible removable of a 1-3 month
segment of the prize timeframe, etc.
Competition
Timeline
For details on dates, please see “Competition Summary”.
Pre-Launch
The Letter-of-Intent (LOI) stage is now closed. Fifty communities submitted LOIs and supporting
information. Participation in the LOI program is not a prerequisite for competing in the GUEP.
Stage 1 – Applications
Eligible communities (including LOI communities) submitted a standard-form application
available here10, covering the following:
9 For EVs, since the installation of (240V) Level 2 charging stations requires utility involvement, the utility may have
relevant information.
10 http://guep.org/apply
15
Brief description of the community and brief biographies of key community and
municipal leaders. (LOI communities need not include the community description,
since that was submitted with the LOI.)
Brief description, history, and current status of existing community energy-savings
programs, if any.
Description of the process that will be used to develop the energy-savings Program
Plan if the Application is accepted. (As part of the planning process, some communities
may find it useful to consult the ACEEE Local Energy Efficiency Self-Scoring Tool11.)
Letters of commitment from municipal leaders, utility officials, and (optionally) other
community organizations that will support the effort.
Combined Communities must also submit the following: (1) Evidence that the
communities can work together successfully (ideally by citing previous cooperation); (2)
An explanation of how the local governments, utilities, and relevant community
organizations will work together on GUEP; and (3) A description of how the purse would
be shared or jointly-used, if won.
After a review by the GUEP Team, fifty two credible applications from eligible communities were
selected as Quarterfinalists and invited to compete in Stage 2 by submitting detailed plans.
Stage 2 – Quarterfinals (Energy Efficiency Program Plans)
Program Plan
Quarterfinalists prepared and submitted a Program Plan based on the outline provided below.
This outline is based in part on the Final Report that communities will submit should they become
Finalists, and it was intended to help you prepare an effective and competitive Plan. That said,
this outline was not prescriptive. Incentive prizes work in part because they encourage
innovation and do not pre-judge how the challenge is best met.
Therefore, while Plans were to include all 8 Sections, they were not required to address all of
the points or issues mentioned in the outline. Some of these may not be relevant in your
community, or to your community’s innovative approach. Furthermore, we encouraged you to
include additional Sections addressing topics that apply to your innovations.
Plans were submitted in PDF format via the website (http://www.guep.org/plan-submission ).
Each plan was to include a title page, immediately followed by a table of contents with page
numbers (ideally, with hyperlinks). Each page was to contain the name of the community in the
header or footer and a page number consistent with the table of contents. There was no
minimum or maximum length for the Plan. We encouraged brevity wherever possible, but not
at the expense of providing important relevant information.
1. Program Management and Partners – topics for this Section include:
Description of Program leadership and management;
How it will be staffed and funded;
11 http://www.aceee.org/research-report/e13l
16
How the community at large will be engaged and motivated;
How the local government will be involved, and what commitments they will make;
Any municipal incentives that are planned via local regulations, zoning, taxation, etc.;
Involvement of businesses or business-groups (even though their energy use isn’t
counted);
Any benefits and incentives available from local utilities via official Energy Efficiency
Programs (which are mandated in many states);
Involvement by citizen groups and major landlords;
Involvement of other partnering organizations (including letters of commitment, if
available;
2. Energy Savings Plan – topics for this section include:
An overall summary of the planned program, including relevant methods and
technologies.
How the program will reach diverse aspects of the community - geographic,
demographic, economic, functional, etc.;
How energy retrofits and other capital improvements will be included in the Program.
(Diverse retrofit technologies are widely available, but adoption rates historically have
been low.) This portion of the Plan should include:
Types of retrofits that will be encouraged;
Retrofit financing (preferably with no cash from current property owners);
Retrofit business resources;
Retrofit marketing and sales strategies;
Adoption goals.
How the Program will target high-return opportunities (if available), for example:
Affordable housing; (It has been reported that public housing typically uses
almost 40% more energy per square foot than privately-owned housing.12)
Residential rentals; (Short-term renters have little incentive to invest in
retrofits.)
Buildings in historic neighborhoods (neighborhoods that have been formally
designated as “historic” by the municipality prior to 2014); Many buildings in
such neighborhoods are energy inefficient, and historic-preservation
restrictions can impede retrofits.
How the community will measure and evaluate the success of the Program (including
the contribution of retrofits and capital improvements?
Does the Program include long term components that won’t affect energy usage during
the two years of Stage 3?
12 http://www.earthtechling.com/2013/08/energy-efficiency-can-help-affordable-housing/
17
3. Utility Data Reporting – please make sure that this Section does address the
following:
How will the Program leadership be working with the electric and gas utilities that serve
the community?
How will the utility identify residential energy consumers in order to aggregate their
energy use?
Is any multi-unit residential housing being excluded because of difficulties in identifying
accounts and securing permissions (e.g., apartment buildings, condos, vacation
communities, etc.)? If so, provide a rough estimate of the number of community
residents that won’t be included in the residential energy aggregation, and explain how
the estimate was obtained. .
How have the community and the utilities identified municipal accounts in order to
aggregate their energy use?
Are there any accounts where only a portion of the energy is used by the municipality
(according to the criteria discussed in “Municipal Accounts”? If so, include a list of these
accounts, noting which ones are being included (in whole or part) and which ones are
being excluded (e.g., because the municipality consumes less than 20% of the energy
billed to the account).
A list of the municipal accounts (this list must be updated as appropriate during the
competition, with GUEP being informed of all updates).
4. Innovation –
What’s innovative about the Program? Relevant innovations include aspects of the plan
that are completely new and different, as well as creative ways of implementing existing
approaches. For example, existing approaches for financing energy retrofits have not
been very effective, and experts believe that innovative financing could increase
adoption rates significantly.
5. Potential for Replication –
Identify planned resources that could become a model for other communities.
Examples include such resources as community-engagement or other systems,
websites, documentation, personnel, etc.
Identify any procedural aspects of the plan may be particularly well-suited for replication
in other communities. Examples might include an innovative retrofit program, an
innovative partnership between the community and the utilities that serve it.
6. Likely Future Performance -
Why are the energy-savings that will be achieved under the Program likely to be
permanent? And why is the Program likely to yield additional savings, continually, after
the competition? Here are some examples of topics that might be relevant:
How aspects of the Program could become institutionalized through policies
and other means. One source for inspiration is ACEEE’s Local Energy
Efficiency Self-Scoring Tool. Another source that might be useful is ISO
18
5000113, a standard that provides organizations with a framework for
integrating energy performance into their management practices
Plans to “build capacity” to support continued efforts, such as professional
development and business development efforts.
What systems or approaches will be used to collect, manage, manage, and exploit
relevant data? One possible example is the increasingly-common use of Green
Button14, an industry-led effort to provide electricity customers with easy access to their
usage data via a “Green Button” on their utility’s website. Green Button was developed
in response to a White House call-to-action15. Some electric utilities have already
adopted or committed to adopting Green Button.16 For more information about Green
Button, see the NIST Smart Grid Collaboration Wiki17. Another example is EPA’s
Portfolio Manager18 – an online tool for measuring and tracking the energy consumption
of a building or portfolio of buildings. For other possible examples, see the Section
“Energy Efficiency Resources for Communities.”
7. Education –
How will the local K-12 school system be involved?
What community-wide educational programs are planned?
8. Prize Purse –
Briefly describe preliminary ideas for how a prize purse would be used to promote and
implement continued energy efficiency measures in a way that benefits the community
as a whole, including all demographic and economic sectors. Communities that are
selected later as Finalists for Stage 4 will have to include a detailed proposal in their
Final Report
For additional details and examples of what might be included in the Program Plan, see the
discussion of the Final Report that will be required from communities that advance to Stage 4 –
“Final Judging”.
Note that final judging will be based on the information in the Final Report, and not on the extent
to which the community stayed with the original Program Plan. Communities are free to deviate
from the Program Plan, but should keep GUEP informed about major changes.
Optional Proposal for Funding
In addition to their proposed Energy Efficiency Program Plan, communities were invited to
submit a proposal to receive seed funding from certain GUEP sponsors and partners. Some
communities are also working to obtain seed funding from their local utilities, from local
businesses, or from the community itself (e.g., via Kickstarter).
There were two specific seed-funding opportunities available to select GUEP communities.
14 http://www.greenbuttondata.org/
15 http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/09/15/modeling-green-energy-challenge-after-blue-button
16 http://www.greenbuttondata.org/greenadopt.html
17 http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/GreenButtonInitiative
18 http://www.energystar.gov/buildings/facility-owners-and-managers/existing-buildings/use-portfolio-manager
19
1. Joyce Foundation Grants for Great Lakes Communities – These small seed grants
($5,000 - $30,000) were available to communities in WI, MN, IL, IN, MI, and OH.
Applications for a seed grant, were to include a budget and summary of how the funds
would be used specifically to advance an innovative and replicable portion of the overall
Program Plan.
2. American Public Power Association DEED Grants for Public Utilities – Communities
served by a publicly owned utility that is a member of APPA’s DEED program, could
apply for a seed funding grant to support their GUEP Program Plan19.
Grants under these programs have already been announced. If additional funding opportunities
become available, they will be immediately sent to all competing communities as well as posted
on guep.org.
Selection of Semifinalists
Based on the Program Plans and seed-funding proposal reviews, the GUEP Semifinalist
Selection Committee invited 50 communities to compete as Semifinalists in the Stage 3
performance competition.
Semifinalist selections were based primarily on the overall quality of the Program Plans and the
extent to which they are innovative and replicable. We also tried to achieve regional diversity,
population-size diversity, and diversity of the proposed energy-savings program approaches. All
communities selected for the Semifinals must sign and return the Semifinalist Acknowledgement
Letter by January 9, 2015. The letter is being provided to all communities along with the
distribution of v8.0 of these Competition Guidelines
Stage 3 – Semifinalist Performance Competition
During the 24 month Competition phase, participating utilities will provide the GUEP
administrators and local community leaders with monthly aggregate community energy data
(see “Energy Consumption Reporting During Competition Stage 3”), and the community will
provide informal progress reports (blog, video, etc.) at least once every two months.
As mentioned in the Section “Data from Local Utilities”, the first quarterly report, must include
the community’s baseline energy use for the 24 months prior to the start), and the gas and
electricity cost (per energy unit) averaged over the entire baseline period.
All communities will also be required to supply a formal annual report after the 12th and 24th
month of the Semifinalist competition. Annual reports will be brief summaries of actions taken
during the year, including the number of residential energy efficiency retrofits, as well as any
lessons learned and adjustments to the Program Plan that are made along the way. A template
for the annual report will be provided at the beginning of the Semifinalist phase of competition.
Here is the full schedule of quarterly reports:
May 15, 2015: First Quarterly Report (Jan - Mar, '15), including the 2013 and 2014
monthly baseline data, plus baseline average cost data
19 http://www.publicpower.org/Programs/Landing.cfm?ItemNumber=31245&&navItemNumber=37529
20
Aug 15, 2015: Second Quarterly Report (Apr - Jun, '15)
Nov 15, 2015: Third Quarterly Report (Jul - Sep, '15)
Feb 15, 2016: Fourth Quarterly Report (Oct - Dec, '15), Plus Annual Qualitative Report
May 15, 2016: First Quarterly Report (Jan - Mar, '16),
Aug 15, 2016: Second Quarterly Report (Apr - Jun, '16)
Nov 15, 2016: Third Quarterly Report (Jul - Sep, '16)
Feb 15, 2017: Fourth Quarterly Report (Oct - Dec, '16), Plus Second Annual Qualitative
Report
GUEP will publicize the competition status via a generally-available website. The informal
progress reports will be posted there, and the monthly energy data will feed the performance
dashboard (see “Energy Consumption Reporting - The Performance Dashboard”). The website
will also offer general educational information about energy and energy efficiency, as well as
links to relevant resource materials.
Stage 4 – Finalist Selection, Judging and Awards
Selection of Finalists
Based on 48 months of data (24 months baseline, 24 months Stage 3), up to 10 Finalists will be
selected as follows:
All Semifinalists will be ranked by an Overall Energy Score (OES) that quantifies their energy-
saving performance relative to the community’s baseline as a percentage change. The OES is
based on the Adjusted Source Energy Use per Residential Bill (ASEU) averaged over the
baseline and Stage 3 Performance Competition periods. In particular, given
ASEUB = ASEU averaged over the 24 months before the start of the Stage 3
Competition
and
ASEUC = ASEU averaged over the 24 months of the Stage 3 Competition,
the Overall Energy Score (OES) is defined as
OES = 100 x (ASEUC – ASEUB) / ASEUB
Decreased energy use will result in a negative OES, and the more negative the better. Note
that for some communities the OES may be positive (increased energy use); the more positive
the Energy Score, the lower the ranking.
The Energy Prize Team will select up to 10 Finalists from the top Semifinalists (i.e., the
communities with the best Energy Scores, with the Energy Score being the primary factor. That
is, all other things being equal, the highest ranking Semifinalists will advance to the Final.
However, the Judging Panel may consider other outstanding factors, including extent of
innovation, diversity of approach, size and geographic diversity, information about electric and
gas vehicles (see Electric and Gas Vehicles), etc.
21
Additional Recognition
The Prize Judges will also identify exceptionally worthy Semifinalists that did not make the
Finals. The GUEP will recognize and publicize these communities by awarding an Energy Plan
Certificate of Accomplishment.
Stage 5 – Finalist Judging
Final Report
Finalists will be invited to submit a Final Report within 60 days, addressing the following:
Competition Performance
Summary of the energy-savings program, including any short- or long-term changes
introduced during the two-year Stage 3 Performance Competition.
General discussion of how well the energy-savings program has worked to date.
Results of a certified, third-party audit of the (non-adjusted) Energy Use per Residential
Bill data that was provided by utilities. (Issue: how to arrange and finance this.)
Discussion of the role and effectiveness of energy retrofits and other capital
improvements.
Discussion of the role and effectiveness of any municipal incentives that were provided
via local regulations, zoning, taxation, etc.;
Discussion of the implementation and success of any program components that target
high-return opportunities, for example:
Affordable housing;
Residential rentals;
Buildings in historic neighborhoods (neighborhoods that have been formally designated
as “historic” by the municipality prior to 2014); Optionally, if energy retrofits or other
capital improvements were a particularly important and effective component of the
community’s Program Plan, the community may also submit an Energy Retrofit Report
that includes –
An accounting of the number and types of retrofits and capital improvements
that were installed prior to the end of the Semifinal, and a description of how
the data were collected.
A description and accounting of any formal energy audits that were conducted
– examples include the DOE Home Energy Score20 and audits according to
the Building Performance Institute21 or the Residential Energy Services
Network (RESNET)22.
The total energy savings predicted by such audits for the 12 months following
the end of the Semifinal.
20 http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/residential/hes_index.html
21 http://www.bpi.org/what.aspx
22 http://resnet.us/energy-audit
22
Optionally, if the community provided information about electric and natural gas vehicles
after Stage 3, prior to the selection of Finalists (as mentioned earlier in the section
Electric and Natural Gas Vehicles), the supporting evidence and proposed method for
taking the effect into account should also be included in the Final Report. Again, it will
be up to the Judging Panel to accept or reject the proposed method (which, if accepted,
would be subject to audit).
Innovation
Discussion of what’s innovative about the energy-savings plan, and how effective the
innovations were. Relevant innovations include aspects of the plan that are completely
new and different, as well as creative ways of implementing existing approaches. For
example, existing approaches for financing energy retrofits have not been very
effective, and experts believe that innovative financing could increase adoption rates
significantly.
Potential for Replication
Discussion of the likelihood of replication in other communities; here are examples of
topics that might be relevant:
What resources were developed that other communities might use? Such
resources might include community-engagement or other systems, websites,
documentation, personnel, etc.
Are there aspects of the energy-savings program that are particularly well-
suited for replicated in other communities?
Lessons learned, and advice for other communities
Likely Future Performance
Discussion of why the energy-savings achieved to date by the program are likely to be
permanent, including evidence of widespread behavior change, and discussion of why
the energy-savings program is likely to yield additional savings, continually in future
years. Here are some examples of topics that might be relevant:
How have aspects of the energy-savings program been institutionalized
through policies and other means? For example, this discussion could include
the results of applying ACEEE’s Local Energy Efficiency Self-Scoring Tool.23
To what extent has there been “capacity building” to support continued efforts?
Examples might include professional development and business development
efforts.
What systems or approaches are being used to collect, manage, manage, and
exploit relevant data?
Equitable Access; Community and Stakeholder Engagement.
Discussion of how the program was designed to reach diverse aspects of the
community - geographic, demographic, functional, and economic (e.g., income
distribution, owners vs. renters, etc), etc. – and to what extent it succeeded.
23 http://www.aceee.org/research-report/e13l
23
Summary of how the community at large was engaged (including material used to
engage) and evidence of how well it was engaged (e.g., how many people took a
documented action a part of the program?).
Summary of the role of the utilities (all electric and gas utilities serving the community)
and evidence of how well they were engaged.
Summary of the role of the municipal government, and evidence of how it worked
together with the community).
Education
Summary of how the local K-12 school system was engaged (including educational
materials), and evidence of how well it was engaged.
Summary of any community-wide educational programs.
Prize Purse
How would the projected prize purse be used to promote and implement continued
energy efficiency measures in a way that benefits the community as a whole, including
all demographic and economic sectors? This was covered briefly in the Program Plan,
but may have changed in the subsequent two years. Regardless, a detailed proposal
should be included in the Final Report.
Final Judging
The Judging Panel will review the Final Reports and score them in seven categories, with a
maximum score of 100:
Category Points
Competition Performance 25
Innovation 15
Potential for Replication 15
Likely Future Performance 10
Equitable Access, Community and Stakeholder
Engagement
10
Education 10
Overall quality and success 15
The highest-ranking community will be awarded first place, with the requirement that the purse
benefit the entire community at large in accordance with spending proposed in the community’s
Stage 2 Program Plan. Second and third place will also be awarded; these additional winners
will receive special recognition and additional benefits, which may include cash purses.
24
All finalists will be subject to audits by the GUEP, e.g. to verify the performance data, to verify
the enumeration of the utilities’ municipal customers, etc.
The Judging Panel
The GUEP Judging Panel will comprise distinguished, reputable, well-known individuals with
diverse backgrounds in business, NGOs, education, and government. Collectively, the Judging
Panel will have expertise in the technical, educational, business, political, and regulatory aspects
of energy efficiency. It will also have expertise in existing community-wide energy-efficiency
programs at both the city and state levels.
The Judges are likely to be individuals with many demands on their time, so GUEP will support
them with a Judges’ Advisory Council. The Council will respond to questions; provide
summaries, perhaps provide recommendations, and generally be helpful based on detailed
knowledge of the GUEP, the competitors, and the Final Reports.
Georgetown University Engagement
In addition to managing the GUEP, Georgetown University will support the competitors by
offering webinars at least quarterly, skills workshops, templates for news releases and other
publications, and similar services.
Georgetown University is collaborating with partners to provide each community with technical
support, resources, and other support that can help with the development and implementation
of their energy efficiency plan. In addition, Georgetown University students, with the support of
partners, will serve as Community Liaisons who will provide information and assistance to
communities, while working to connect them with the full range of community resources and
technical assistance that GUEP partners have available.
In addition Georgetown University students will work directly on the prize by:
Spending time in a community, providing on-the-ground assistance and participating in
experiential learning opportunities;
Working with sponsors and partners to ensure that their resources and engagement
are enhancing the educational, energy efficiency, and innovation objectives of the Prize;
Serving as members of the Judge’s Advisory Council (see “The Judging Panel”), and
being represented on the final Judges Panel.
At the start of the two-year Stage 3 competition and at the end of the first year, we will host a
forum at the University for GUEP competitors – an opportunity for them to exchange ideas, hear
from experts and opinion leaders, and present progress. It will also provide an opportunity for
visits with their House and Senate Members, as well as with DOE, EPA, and other relevant
Executive branch offices.
In keeping with Georgetown University’s role as an educational institution, GUEP competitors
are required to involve their local school system, and the effectiveness of that involvement is one
of the criteria for selecting winners. As mentioned earlier, Final Reports must address “how the
local school system was engaged (including educational materials) and evidence of how well it
was engaged.
25
To make it easier for communities to address these educational requirements, we are looking
into coordination with the American Home Energy Education Challenge (AHEEC), a competition
that was sponsored by DOE in partnership with the National Science Teachers Association, in
which students work to reduce the energy consumption of their home.
Likewise, we would like to coordinate with two organizations that specifically address energy
education (and that support the AHEEC): EnergyTeachers.org and the National Energy
Education Development Project24 (NEED).
Long term, data from the GUEP will provide a research opportunity – for example, educators
who are studying what does and doesn’t work in energy education. All such shared data will be
aggregate data that does not contain private information.
Energy Efficiency Resources for Communities
One goal of the GUEP is to stimulate replicable innovations in community energy efficiency, but
this does not mean that competing communities should start from scratch. Communities
(together with their local governments and utilities) can and should learn from and, as
appropriate, use the many resources that are available from governments, non-profits, and
commercial companies.
We will publicize these and other resources in a section of the GUEP website25. We encourage
their use, but there’s no requirement to do so. Examples include:
DOE’s Better Buildings Neighborhood Program26 - a collection of information developed
for and by state and local governments describing successful strategies for designing
and implementing residential retrofit programs. (DOE is also launching a peer sharing
network and Solution Center that all GUEP competitors will be invited to use as beta
testers of in 2014.)
DOE’s Home Energy Score27 – a quick and easy tool that allows qualified assessors
to
Generate clear, credible home energy assessments at a reasonable cost;
Recommend customized upgrades and other cost saving tips; and,
Help consumers compare the energy use of different homes;
Various DOE guides, including
Advanced Energy Retrofit Guide (AERG) for K-12 Schools28
Advanced Energy Retrofit Guide (AERG) for Office Buildings29
24 http://www.need.org/
25 http://guep.org/resources-for-competitors
26 http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/betterbuildings/neighborhoods/
27 http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/residential/hes_index.html
28 https://buildingdata.energy.gov/cbrd/resource/17
29 https://buildingdata.energy.gov/cbrd/resource/19
26
Community Strategic Energy Planning Guide30
Strategic Energy Planning Guide for the Public Sector31
EPA’s Portfolio Manager32 – an online tool for measuring and tracking the energy
consumption of a building or portfolio of buildings. In the case of GUEP, this is
applicable to municipal buildings.
HUD’s Guide to Energy-Efficient and Healthy Homes – a consumer guide describing
how to improve a home’s energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality.
ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability33 – an association of cities and local
governments dedicated to sustainable development
Sources for energy education curricula, such as EnergyTeachers.org and the National
Energy Education Development Project34 (NEED)
Energy saving cloud services and apps (We believe that the Internet, the cloud, social
media, GPS, and smart-phones have come together in way that can provide new
technology for crowd-sourced energy efficiency among a community of users). Some
emerging examples:
DOE’s “Apps for Energy” competition35;
City of Chicago apps competition36;
The DOE-Livermore-Laboratory Home Energy Saver37;
EPA’s Energy Star Portfolio Manager38;
The Delaware Electric Co-Op “Beat the Peak39” indicator light (for
communicating load information to utility customers
Commercial companies that help consumers to understand, track, and reduce their
energy consumption; examples include:
Opower – partners with utilities to provide household-specific energy-efficiency
information and advice
EcoFactor40 - works with utilities and homeowners to reduce energy
consumption via internet-connected programmable thermostats
C3 Energy41 - offers software solutions to help organizations understand,
optimize, and report on their energy use.
30 http://www1.eere.energy.gov/wip/solutioncenter/strategic_energy_planning_guide.html
31 http://www4.eere.energy.gov/alliance/activities/public-sector-teams/community-strategic-energy-planning
32 http://www.energystar.gov/buildings/facility-owners-and-managers/existing-buildings/use-portfolio-manager
33 http://www.iclei.org
34 http://www.need.org/
35 http://appsforenergy.challenge.gov/
36 http://www.appsformetrochicago.org/
37 http://homeenergysaver.lbl.gov/consumer/
38 http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=evaluate_performance.bus_portfoliomanager
39 http://www.delaware.coop/beat-peak/indicator-light
40 http://www.ecofactor.com
41 www.c3energy.com
27
Itron42 – provides utilities with energy-management products, services, and
analyses
Enterprise Community Investment43 - a for-profit company dedicated to
affordable housing, with a specific program for Green Communities44.
AmericanEfficient45
Building Energy, Inc. – provides software tools for exploiting data about energy
yse
Non-profits with a focus on energy-efficiency; examples include:
The Joyce Foundation46 – focused on improving the quality of life in the Great
Lakes region, including community energy-efficiency.
SmartPower47 - a non-profit marketing firm dedicated to promoting clean,
renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Vermont Energy Investment Corporation48 - a nonprofit dedicated to reducing
the economic and environmental costs of energy consumption, VEIC designs
programs that reduce energy use through energy efficiency and renewable
energy. VEIC is member of DOE’s Technical Assistance Program team.
The Home Performance Resource Center49 - a national not-for-profit
organization formed to conduct research and education concerning the field of
home energy performance
The Energy Foundation50 – awards grants to promote the transition to a
sustainable energy future by advancing energy efficiency and renewable
energy
Enterprise Community Partners51 – a non-profit associated with Enterprise
Community Investment (see above), with a particular focus on financing
Living Cities52 – a collaboration of the world’s largest foundations and financial
institutions, dedicated to improving low-income communities
JPB Foundation53 – focused on improving the quality of life in low-income
communities, including environmental sustainability
Retrofit technologies, installation examples, and services (e.g., see DOE’s Building
America program Solution Center54)
Retrofit financing models
42 https://www.itron.com/
43 http://www.enterprisecommunity.com/
44 http://www.enterprisecommunity.com/solutions-and-innovation/enterprise-green-communities
45 http://www.americanefficient.com/
46 http://www.joycefdn.org/
47 http://www.smartpower.org/
48 http://www.veic.org
49 http://www.hprcenter.org/about-us
50 http://www.ef.org
51 http://www.enterprisecommunity.com/
52 http://www.livingcities.org/
53 http://jpbfoundation.org/
54 http://basc.pnnl.gov
28
Other innovative financing mechanisms (e.g., Kickstarter)55
Certified energy audits
Alternative energy sources (solar, wind, geothermal, etc.)
Long-term energy-saving devices (appliances, lights, smart thermostats, etc.)
ISO 50001
FAQs
Although we have reasons for the choices we’ve made, we acknowledge that a more expansive
competition could lead to greater change. But we can’t do it all – complexity goes way up and
with it goes manageability, gaming issues, resource issues, judging controversies, etc. Keeping
the competition’s long term goal in mind (community energy efficiency), we think that the
restrictions we’ve made are a reasonable balance between complexity and expansiveness.
Why restrict the competition to municipalities with populations between 5,000 and 250,000?
First, note that this definition of eligible communities includes 65% of the U.S. population.
Regarding cities with populations greater than 250,000, many such cities already have long-
term energy and environment programs (with major funding and staff), which would give them
an unfair advantage. It might be possible to create a fair competition, but that would complicate
the prize rules and administration. Large size disparities between competing communities could
easily lead to unforeseen advantages that spoil the competition. Furthermore, the need is
greater in smaller communities, which typically do not have such aggressive energy and
environment programs (with major funding and staff).
At the other extreme, some towns with very small populations could easily achieve high
participation rates, giving them an unsurmountable advantage; hence the lower limit of 5,000.
Note, however, that GUEP will also consider applications from “combined communities” –
communities with common borders that together have a total population greater than 5,000 (see
“Eligible Communities”).
Why normalize the total residential and municipal energy use by the number of residential bills?
To enable fair comparisons, it’s essential to adjust the total gas and electric energy use to
account for differences in community size. One obvious approach (indeed, our initial approach)
is to compute the total energy use per capita. But this has two major problems. One is that
community populations can change significantly during the two-year competition period, but
there’s no easy and authoritative way to measure that.
The other problem is fuel-switching. For example, if there’s a trend to switch from heating via
fuel oil to heating via gas or electricity, the total gas and electric energy per capita would increase,
thereby penalizing the community unfairly. (Indeed, depending on the situation, such fuel-
switching can increase overall energy efficiency and decrease greenhouse gas emissions, so it
would be particularly pernicious for the GUEP to penalize such a trend.)
55 http://www.kickstarter.com /
29
To avoid these problems, we will normalize by the number of residential bills. This has several
advantages:
It avoids penalizing communities for switching to gas or electricity. (The total energy
use increases, but so does the number of residential accounts.)
It avoids penalizing (or rewarding!) communities for changes in population size. (The
number of residential bills is highly correlated with population size.)
The number of residential utility bills is easily measured as it changes over time.
Note that we will normalize both residential and municipal energy use by the number of
residential bills (rather than normalizing residential use by the number of residential bills, and
normalizing municipal use by the number of municipal bills). This makes sense because the
main purpose of the municipal government is to serve the residents. It’s also simpler.
Why not adjust for inherent advantages or disadvantages that could stem from having (or not
having) a pre-existing community-wide energy efficiency program?
Some communities may have a “head start” – inherent advantages such as existing energy
efficiency programs with existing municipal staff, smart meters, and access to State funds for
clean energy deployment56. Why not take this into account?
On the other hand, communities that don’t have such a “head start” may have a different inherent
advantage: the availability of “low hanging fruit” that “head start” communities have already
picked. Why not take this into account?
So it’s unclear whether it’s more advantageous to be a “head start” community or a “fresh start”
community.
It may be true that “fresh start” communities have an advantage with respect to reducing the
Adjusted Energy Use per Residential Bill. On the other hand, an important Final Judging
criterion is the likelihood of continuing change, not just two years of change. And in this respect
“head start” communities with well-established energy-efficiency programs may have an
advantage.
We believe that possible advantages or disadvantages of “head start” vs., “fresh start” will
balance. Besides, it would be complicated, difficult, and controversial to specify entrance or
judging criteria that address this issue.
That said, the selection of semifinalists for Stage 3 includes a subjective component, and the
GUEP Judging Panel could choose to exclude communities that have too much of a head start
(and in fact really don’t need GUEP) and likewise exclude communities that have achieved
dramatic improvements in energy-efficiency but haven’t implemented a long-term energy-
efficiency program.
Why not adjust for economic differences?
Since major economic changes can lead to reduced or increased energy use independent of
community efforts, and since rich communities have more resources than poor communities,
56 http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy11osti/49340.pdf
30
we considered having the Adjusted Energy Use per Residential Bill include an adjustment based
on economic considerations.
This would have been essential if industrial and commercial energy use were to be included (vs.
just residential and municipal). For example, the opening or closing of a major factory could
have significant effects. Indeed, this is one of the reasons for excluding industrial and
commercial energy use.
Even with the restriction to residential and municipal energy use, one can argue that an
economic adjustment should still be made. For example, in the absence of creative financing
models, wealthy communities may have an advantage in being able to afford more retrofits and
energy-saving appliance replacements.
But there are counterarguments; for example, wealthy communities may have the means to
purchase retrofits, but they also generally buy newer, more efficient houses to begin with. On
the other hand, GUEP challenges communities to develop creative financing models for retrofits
that do not require cash from residents, and we want to retain the incentive to do so. Similarly,
we hope that lower-income communities will be creative in the cost or financing of other energy
saving measures. For these reasons, and also because it would add considerable complexity
to the GUEP rules, we chose not to adjust for economic differences.
Does a community in a temperate zone have a disadvantage?
No, because the basic figure of merit adjusts for weather based on the number of heating and
cooling days.
Why use fixed national rather than varying regional source energy factors?
An alternative to using national average source energy factors would have been to use factors
that are more community-specific, which in principle could account for regional or even local
variations in energy generation. Unfortunately, such regional factors can be controversial, as
they’re based on estimates, averages, and modeling assumptions, and there’s no single,
validated, nationally accepted standard.
In principle, regional source energy factors could also account for changes in energy generation
that utilities might make during the course of the 24-month Performance Competition, but that’s
not possible because the approaches for determining regional factors are based on data that’s
several years old, and there’s no nationally accepted means of updating regional factors on an
annual basis.
Using regional source energy factors would have been complicated and confusing, and would
result in real or perceived unfairness in comparing communities, which is why GUEP has
accepted the U.S. government recommendation to use national averages that are fixed for the
duration of the competition.
Overall, including source energy in the figure of merit via national factors should create additional
incentives for communities to reduce their utility-supplied-energy, while educating the public on
the full-fuel-cycle effects of the energy they consume, and the importance of working toward a
more efficient national energy grid.
31
The prize is awarded based on a combination of objective figures of merit and subjective
judging. Why not award the prize entirely based on objective figures of merit?
We want the GUEP to lead to continuing improvements after the competition, and to replication
in other communities. These aspects require subjective judgments following the Competition
Stage – to develop an objective figure of merit would be difficult and controversial. Note that we
do specify the judging criteria and the quantitative weights that will be applied to the judged score
for each criterion.
Why restrict the energy consumption to residential and municipal? Why not commercial,
industrial, transportation, etc.
We omitted transportation because it is too difficult to measure in a simple way (unlike energy
from utilities).
We chose residential plus municipal because our focus is on communities, including public
schools, and we believe that long-term energy-saving actions will require the cooperation of
community citizens and community-selected municipal leaders. Municipal energy use is
included in the scoring to provide an incentive for the municipality and the community to work
together, and providing seed funding will facilitate that work.
Another reason is to keep the playing field relatively level. Including commercial and industrial
energy uses complicates things because these sectors are more likely to be responsive to
economic and business forces outside of the community (market conditions, ownership, etc.). In
addition, including these sectors could give certain communities an overwhelming advantage
(since committed commercial and industrial consumers can produce relatively large increases
in efficiency).
Finally, excluding these sectors reduces the problem of economic normalization (what if a big
factory opens or closes?; likewise large commercial consumers).
Of course we hope that the community efforts spread to these other sectors, and it seems
reasonable that to some extent this will happen – thus, in some way we are affecting
commercial/industrial usage even though we exclude them from the competition.
Why restrict the measurement of energy consumption to electricity and gas?
We recognize that electricity and gas do not account for all residential and municipal use, the
primary omission being oil and propane used for heating. Unfortunately, measurable energy
use is essential to the prize design, and there’s no straightforward way to measure the use of
these other energy sources uniformly and with adequate accuracy.
Note that it is not required that a community has both gas and electric services. Also, there’s no
inherent advantage to having both, since performance is measured by the percentage reduction
of energy used during the competition period vs. the baseline period.
What happens if the municipal or community leadership changes during the competition?
We recognize that leadership changes are likely during the course of the competition, but we
consider that to be something that the community has to deal with.
32
Acknowledgements
A large number of individuals and organizations have contributed to the development of these
Competition Guidelines. A credible and effective GUEP could not exist without their generous
help. We are immensely grateful.