Client: American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE)
Authors: Bryndis Woods, PhD, Liz Stanton, PhD, and Sagal Alisalad
October 2021
On behalf of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), this Applied Economics Clinic white paper recommends measures that cities and states can undertake to facilitate equitable energy efficiency evaluation and reporting of energy efficiency efforts, based on the results of our review of low-income energy efficiency efforts in ACEEE’s top-scoring cities and states in their 2020 City and State energy efficiency scorecards.
We find that the cities and states most highly-rated for energy efficiency offer programs for low-income community members, but fail to take critical actions necessary for equitable evaluation and reporting to facilitate equitable outcomes. Based on our review of these programs, we find that—while these programs have made important progress on addressing equity concerns by offering efficiency programming specifically to low-income households—more robust energy efficiency evaluation and reporting are needed to shine a light on city and state equity-focused energy efficiency programming and ensure that efficiency benefits are equitably distributed. We recommend three main improvements that would drastically enhance the ability to evaluate these programs for their equity-related impacts:
• Mandate disaggregated efficiency program performance reporting;
• Identify, track, and target vulnerable populations; and
• Integrate energy efficiency, climate, and equity planning and reporting.