How are long-term energy savings ensured in CA vs. current TX programs?
In Texas you get paid right away, as soon as the installation is verified for jobs using deemed savings, or after the first year’s savings have been measured, for larger installations. In some other states payments are parceled out over a two, four or ten-year period. CA installations in 94-97 (governed by CADMAC) were essentially only one-year measurement studies. They do 4th and 9th yr retention studies, but retention is only whether the measure is still installed and still working. It doesn’t pick up on whether savings have degraded. They only measured reduction in usage in that first year.New Jersey measures every month for 15 yrs, however it presents great difficulty for contractors to maintain those measurements. That keeps them from participating.In Texas all sort of things were suggested to account for degradation over time or for the possibility that people removed the measures. One suggestion was to assume only 80% of deemed savings number instead of 100%. That’s not what the
