Auditing NYC’s Net-Energy Savings programs
This analysis focuses on New York city’s Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard (EEPS) Program and attempts to identify net savings by energy administrator and by sector. New York State’s utilities and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) administer energy efficiency programs to achieve energy efficiency savings. As per the NYC Open Data portal, the Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard (EEPS) Program encourages cost-effective electric and natural gas energy efficiency across New York State. EEPS energy efficiency programs provide technical services, information and customer incentives to encourage customers in implementing energy efficiency measures. The data reviewed for purposes of this analysis thus includes the list of energy efficiency programs and the estimated energy savings reported for each program.
The program was established in 2008 by the NYC Public Service Commission as part of a statewide program to reduce New Yorkers’ electricity usage. The State’s utilities were required to file energy efficiency programs, and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, as well as independent parties, were invited to submit energy efficiency program proposals for Commission approval. Since June 2009, therefore, the Commission has approved over 90 electric and gas energy efficiency programs, along with rules to guide implementation and measure results, through a series of orders.
Methodology
The data is sourced from NYC Open Data portal. The data was then filtered on the site to only include data as of December 31st 2019 which was the latest and most updated for the available data set. This was then exported as a csv file used in the R platform for purposes of analysis.
On the RStudio platform, I installed both the tidyverse and the janitor libraries to enable dplyr and cleaning capabilities. I used janitor to clean up column names after renaming the file for that distinction. The data was then sorted using (filter) into two separate files, one for Gas savings and the other for electricity savings. An analysis of the Gas savings component included using (group-by) all consumption by both administrator and by sector and performing cumulative sums of consumptions under each segment using (summarize). This was repeated for similar elements in the electricity net savings data. Both strategies resulted in tabulated results of summed net savings under each category.
Results and findings
Gas Savings
An initial summary of total net savings attributable to Gas indicates that across all sectors and EEPS plan administrators, a total of 34,344,090 Dekatherms (Dth) of gas was saved for the period under review. Of these net-savings, residential and commercial sector consumers accounted for the most net-savings with residentials accounting for 15.6million Dekatherms while commercial pulled in approximately 12.9million Dekatherms. Multi-Family units accounted for the least savings at approximately 5.8million. In terms of policy making therefore, EEPS plan administrators can undertake further research to understand factors causing this difference and to focus resources and strategies as appropriate. While policy can focus on doubling down on residential and commercial sector savings to maximize outcomes, new approaches can be instituted to improve performances in the multifamily sector.
The New York State energy Research and Development Authority accounted for the most savings at 14.8Dth followed closely by Consolidated Edison company of New York, Niagara Mohawk Power, The Brooklyn Union Gas company and National Fuel Gas Distribution Corporation. A breakdown of each administrator’s performance against set targets could be key in aiding NYC in better determining the performance of each administrator in line with the EEPS initial contract with each. Administrators could similarly weigh their performance against market-share to proactively determine performance index and necessary internal performance reviews if necessary including a review of technology use, power metering and distribution methodologies and loss control.
Electricity Savings
In electricity, a total of 15,285,062 KWh Net Savings were saved. Of all these savings, the commercial sector accounted for approximately 11.5Million KWh followed by Residentials that accounted for 3.3million KWh. The disparity between consumption of Gas versus electricity and how it impacted each administrator is something worth reviewing closely. Data suggests that residentials consume more gas relative to electricity when compared to commercial users and this similarly applies to multi-family sector. In terms of policy therefore, sector specific energy differences can be key in understanding the dynamics affecting energy consumption and the savings-capability of each segment.
A review of findings by plan administrator indicates that compared to Gas, there are fewer program administrators participating in the Electric Net-Savings programs. While there were 8 participants in the electricity segment, the gas program had 12 program administrators. In the electric component Consolidated Energy Corporation of New York, Niagara Mohawk Power corporation and New York State Energy Research and Development Authority lead other EEPS administrators with savings of 2.24Million, 8.42Million and 2.88Million respectively in Net Savings as indicated in figure 2 below. The three administrators are significantly trailed by other players. While this could also be attributable to market-share by each program administrator and that those with lower Net-Savings could actually be better performers, the city could use this level of aggregated data to further review each program’s performance against set benchmarks and to recommend changes as appropriate.
Implications for NYC.
Refining the performance of the identified programs by sector and by administrator provides New York city with a strong analytical basis upon which to evaluate the short term and long term performances of its energy saving partners. These performances can be tallied against each players market-share for a more accurate understanding of their overall efficiency in meeting pre-set net-savings goals as set by the city. It is also a great eye-opener for the city’s urban policy setting leaders to understanding the anticipated or potential energy consumption and savings outcomes (per energy type) with regard to old, existing and upcoming developments and to strategically better equipped in the face of the city’s green energy goals.
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