DHP Supplemental Fuel Screen Subcommittee Meeting

1. DHP Supplemental Fuel ScreenSubcommittee Meeting Regional Technical Forum February 12, 2014

2. Today’s Agenda • Reminder: subcommittee’s tasked duties • Recap from last subcommittee meeting • Present simple monthly bill screen • The Median Low Bill (MLB) Screen • Wrap up and discuss next steps

3. Subcommittee Duties • At its November 2013 meeting, the RTF voted to establish DHP Supplemental Fuel Screening Subcommittee • Proposed duties for DHP Screening Subcommittee: • Identify workable screen(s) for all zones • Evaluate their implementation characteristics • Determine reliability of companion UES(s) for each screen • Make a recommendation to the full RTF • Subcommittee should have at least (5) voting RTF members with expertise in programs, Zone 3, and DHP savings calibration

4. Recap from Last Meeting • DHP Screening subcommittee last met on December 10, 2013 • Subcommittee discussed a number of screening options • VBDD screen • Site visit screen • Simple monthly bill screen • The group discussed pros and cons of each of the screening methods

5. Recap from Last Meeting (cont’d) • Subcommittee discussed the possible complexity of the VBDD screen, particularly the building and maintaining of the screening tool • Site visit screen was unpopular with some – thought to be overly restrictive, particularly in Heating Zone 3 • Subcommittee directed staff to look into a ‘simple’ monthly billing screen

6. The Median Low Bill (MLB) Screen • What is it? • A ‘simple’ monthly bill screen that can be used to estimate heating from non-heating energy consumption • Requires twelve months of consecutive bills • Screen looks at the three lowest bills of the year, and picks the middle of the three – this is the median low bill • The median low bill is used to estimate the non-heating base load of the building • For the nine (9) remaining months, the median low bill is subtracted from each month, leaving the estimated monthly heating energy consumption

7. The MLB Screen (continued) • The estimated heating energy for the nine months is summed, giving total annual estimated heating energy • This total is the compared against a screen threshold • If a home uses more heating energy than the screen threshold, it PASSES; • If a home uses less heating energy than the threshold, it FAILS. • The following are suggested thresholds in the current analysis: • Heating Zone 1: 5,000 kWh • Heating Zones 2 and 3: 9,500 kWh

8. The MLB Screen (continued) • Examples • Let’s see examples of how the screen works in practice • Open up the example MLB calculator file (‘DHP Median Low Bill (MLB) Screen Example.xlsx’)

9. The MLB Screen (continued) • Pros • Simple algorithm • Requires only customer bills (i.e. no weather data needed) • Allows any home through the screen with enough heating energy to save (i.e. doesn’t disqualify a home based simply on the presence of a wood stove) • Provides a clear explanation to customers as to why they did or did not qualify (you either have enough kWh to save or you don’t)

10. The MLB Screen (continued) • Cons • Requires 12 months of consecutive bills (i.e. new homeowners and some rentals would not qualify) • Cannot eliminate usage items like: water trough heaters, snow melt cable, water pipe heat tape, snow melt in drives and walks, space heat in barns/garages/well houses, which are not necessarily tied to space heat usage (note: this is true for most all screens) • Since supplemental fuel use shows up in the PASSES and FAILS, need to account for both electric savings and wood savings on both sides of the screen

11. The MLB Screen (continued) • Companion UESs • We now know how to apply the MLB screen, but how do we compute the companion UESs and NEBs? • Ben L. walks us through the analysis

12. Discussion and Next Steps • Is the group in favor of the MLB screen? • Where to go from here?