RTF Quarterly Newsletter: Quarter No. 35 January-March

The RTF started the year with a bang, updating the Non-Residential Lighting Retrofits Standard Protocol at January’s meeting. These were primarily updates to assumptions around the current practice baseline, which only applies to savings in the post-remaining useful life period. Most of the discussion at the meeting was around the methodology for determining current practice watts. This is a challenging assumption, as the RTF is determining what the building owner would have installed after the existing lighting system failed, which is completely unknown. After much discussion, the group concluded that taking an average of the pre-condition implied watts (assuming they would have installed what is there) and the efficient case implied watts (assuming they would have changed the lighting levels anyway) was the most apt, which was captured in the update.

At February’s meeting RTF contract analysts presented on their commercial whole building white paper, in collaboration with Bill Koran from SBW Consulting about evaluation capabilities of data-driven models of whole-building energy consumption (often described as NMEC in some jurisdictions). The paper seeks to describe what is currently known about the reliability of savings evaluations based on these models.  The paper is intended to inform the RTF and other stakeholders about the current state of knowledge regarding reliability of savings estimates based on data-driven models of commercial building-level energy consumption.  The comment period closed in early April and now the contract analysts are digesting the comments they received.  Next they will take the paper with comments to the commercial building model subcommittee to revise findings and recommendations. Analysts will then seek an RTF decision on summary findings and recommendations, this would be an anticipated topic for the June RTF meeting at the earliest.

RTF 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 March’s presentation was a share out of progress with a focus on insulation updates. RTF contract analysts are calibrating the model by taking a set of buildings from RBSA II, for which important characteristics are well known, and creating a set of simulation models, from there they run those models through SEEM to estimate energy consumption for each building. They then compare the modeled energy consumption to the actual energy consumption for each building and come up with a set of factors to adjust modeled to actual. Finally they use the models and adjustment factors to estimate energy savings for a variety of, mostly weather-dependent, efficiency measures. A well calibrated model is important to the work the RTF does as a model that is calibrated to real energy consumption data can be a robust alternative where measurement-based estimates are not feasible or available.

Demand Response 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. Two DR impact estimates were brought in front of the RTF in February, one for level 2 electric vehicle chargers and the other for commercial lighting controls. Another technology, connected thermostats, was explored in March. The contract analysts presented the maximum per unit potential for each technology to the RTF for their consideration. All three proposals also passed through the Demand Response Subcommittee where regional experts weighed in on these estimates. This thoroughly vetted, initial review will now be passed on to the Council’s Demand Response Advisory Committee for further analysis.   

Demand Response Subcommittee: Met twice in quarter one of 2019. First, in February, to discuss the RTF’s role in demand response as well as two DR technologies, commercial lighting controls and electric vehicle battery chargers. The next time they met in March about demand response impact estimate as it pertains to connected thermostats.

Small and Rural Utilities Subcommittee: The Small/Rural Subcommittee maintains a dedicated function within the RTF to support the specific needs of small and rural utilities. This subcommittee met once in Q1 of 2019 to discuss the applicability of recently adopted measures to small and rural utilities and to poll the group for new measures of interest for the upcoming year.

Operations: The RTF Operations subcommittee meets before each RTF meeting to review and discuss the RTF meeting agendas, decisions, and contracts.

Non-residential Lighting Subcommittee: The purpose of this meeting was to get subcommittee feedback on proposed changes to the Non-Residential Lighting Retrofits Standard Protocol. This protocol was updated at the January RTF meeting. This subcommittee will meet again later in this year to discuss other non-residential lighting measures.

Ductless Heat Pump Subcommittee: The RTF’s single-family and manufactured homes DHP for Zonal UES measures received a sunset date extension in January. The contract analysts will be working on updates to these measures over the coming months.

Implementers Group: The Implementers Group meets after each RTF meeting to discuss the outcome of the RTF meeting, upcoming RTF meeting topics, and other topics that affect program implementers in the region.