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<TITLE>Re: [Greenbuilding] Green is 9%</TITLE>
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<FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'>Excellent point.<BR>
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On 7/24/12 6:24 PM, "Reuben Deumling" <<a href="9watts@gmail.com">9watts@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'>How interesting. Thanks for sending this. <BR>
What I want to know is whether the homes (houses we used to call them) so labeled used less energy (or water, or whatever) than the houses in the control group. Of course the occupants would be an important component, left out of this article. <BR>
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I've copied the passages below to the list before: <BR>
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The 437 pg. report by RLW Analytics, which includes the following excerpts can be found at the www.CALMAC.org <<a href="http://www.CALMAC.org">http://www.CALMAC.org</a>> site. <BR>
It is titled: EVALUATION, MEASUREMENT, AND VERIFICATION OF THE 2004 & 2005 CALIFORNIA STATEWIDE ENERGY STAR® NEW HOMES PROGRAM. <BR>
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"The billing analysis performed for CZ8 and CZ12 [CA climate zones 8 & 12] indicates that participants use more electricity and fewer therms than non-participants. Controlling for<BR>
housing characteristics as well as demographic information, ENERGY STAR® homes<BR>
participants used more energy with the exception of CZ12 gas usage. The demographic <BR>
question results all point to non-participants using more energy than participants, and<BR>
even controlling for these variables, we see participants with higher usage." (p.16)<BR>
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"Occupant Behavior is as Important as Building Characteristics <BR>
Our billing analysis results, showing negative program savings in climate zones that the<BR>
metering [modeling?] indicates positive savings, highlighted the fact that occupant behavior is one of the largest drivers of energy consumption. For this reason, future evaluations may want to explore ESH occupant behaviors. If people who choose to buy ENERGY STAR® homes are already conservation minded people and therefore purchase the homes to be ecofriendly or "green" than they may be conservative in their energy use already. This <BR>
would reduce the energy usage, and therefore the energy savings of the home.<BR>
Conversely a person who knows they already consume a lot of energy may purchase an<BR>
ENERGY STAR® home because even with no change in their behavior, they will still have <BR>
reduced bills; a person may even increase their comfort level, for example by lowering<BR>
the temperature in their home during the summer, because they think their home is<BR>
more efficient and they still may consume less energy. <BR>
Whether one or the other behavior is more prevalent would not only have a significant<BR>
impact on estimated savings, but also has implications for how to best market a new<BR>
construction residential energy efficiency program." ( p.159)<BR>
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