RTF February and March 2019 Meetings Recap

Two more RTF meetings have come and gone and the new class of RTF-ers are quickly learning the ropes and proving thoughtful and engaged on all things energy efficiency.  If you missed February or March’s meetings, here’s a quick recap of what was discussed. 

Much of February’s meeting was spent on approving proposed demand response impact estimates. DR is a new subject for the RTF which has raised a lot of important issues to be worked through by the group as they consider the prescribed scope of the RTF in this space contrasted against fully engaging with the issue like they would any other measure.  Two DR impact estimates were brought in front of the RTF in February one for level 2 AC EV chargers and the other for commercial lighting controls.  The contract analysts presented the maximum per unit potential for each technology to the RTF for their consideration.  This thoroughly vetted, initial review will now be passed on to the Council’s Demand Response Advisory Committee for further analysis.    

March’s RTF meeting briefly touched on another DR technology, connected thermostats, but the group did not arrive at a consensus on the impact estimate. Most of the March meeting, however, was spent discussing tool updates, both SEEM and SIW.  Contract analysts have started an ongoing calibration of the SEEM housing model that will eventually be applied to relevant RTF measures.  The process has just gotten started and this month’s presentation was a share out of progress with a focus on insulation updates.  The other tool being updated was the RTF’s Standard Information Workbook.  The SIW is a centralized data resource containing regionally representative costs assumptions and other data that are common across multiple measures, it is intended to help improve consistency and reduce duplication in RTF work products.  This update to primarily cost related cross-cutting assumptions is the first since 2017.     

The next RTF meeting, coming soon on April 23, will be, as always, packed with important and interesting topics.  Highlights will include, even more SEEM calibration updates, a few measure deactivations, UES updates for electronic thermostats and ECMs for display cases, and some discussion of the Council’s quantifiable resource cost framework. We hope to see you there!