Efficiency evaluation of hypothetical whole home energy efficiency programs : in British Columbia, Canada

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to determine if a hypothetical province wide, whole home, innovative energy efficiency financing program, could deliver more cost-effective energy savings and greenhouse gas emission reductions, than a comparable energy efficiency subsidy program in British Columbia, Canada. Based on data from the 2011/12 LiveSmart BC 3.0 and ecoENERGY subsidy programs, I construct three hypothetical energy efficiency program scenarios referred to as the: Subsidy Scenario, Finance Scenario, and Finance + Subsidy Scenario. The two finance based scenarios are designed to approximate the energy efficiency measure uptake, and operating cost, of innovative financing programs such as on-property tax bill financing, and on-utility bill financing. The paper contributes to existing literature on energy efficiency programs in British Columbia by modeling the effects that different types of energy efficiency programs have on the net present values of residential energy efficiency measures, and by estimating the possible cost-effectiveness of energy efficiency financing programs in the province. With minor differences between each of the hypothetical energy efficiency program scenarios, the installation of almost 40,000 energy efficiency measures in 2011 is estimated to produce 14 petajoules of energy savings, and a reduction of 650,000 carbon dioxide equivalent tonnes of greenhouse gas, over the combined operating lifetimes of the measures. I estimate that each hypothetical energy efficiency program scenario would achieve an energy savings cost-effectiveness of $3 per gigajoule saved, and deliver greenhouse gas emissions reductions at a cost-effectiveness of $60 to $66 per carbon dioxide equivalent tonne. Though the cost-effectiveness of all three hypothetical energy efficiency program scenarios are found to be similar, my findings show that under the Finance Scenario, funding for annual program operating costs may be sourced from the interest payments made by borrowers. In contrast, the Subsidy Scenario’s operating costs must be covered entirely by the administering organization.