|
ICF combines its expertise in energy policy, building science, and industry knowledge with its unique analytical capabilities to help clients successfully develop policies and programs. ICF has extensive experience assessing energy performance and savings for technologies and buildings. This experience ranges from providing simple assessments, such as spreadsheet calculations, to very detailed energy modeling simulations for the residential, commercial, and industrial buildings sectors. ICF also has extensive experience in creating sophisticated and easy to use software tools for clients to predict the energy and demand savings potential of their programs.
Building energy analysis can help answer the following:
- What level of efficiency should be promoted to maximize the impacts of voluntary programs?
- What is the short-term and long-term potential for energy and demand savings within a defined market (e.g, residential, commercial, or industrial sector within a service territory, state, or country)?
- What combination of upgrades can most cost effectively meet a predetermined savings target?
- How can the impacts of occupant behavior on consumption be quantified and managed?
Accurately assessing building energy consumption and savings potential is challenging because buildings are complex systems defined by the way in which they are designed, constructed, and operated. Yet doing so creates a foundation for making sound policy decisions. Building energy analysis can quantify the cost and savings potential of technologies and practices in the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors, helping to prioritize investment decisions.
ICF International’s experts understand the challenges of accurately assessing building energy consumption and designing effective energy policy. ICF International works with individual builders, developers, property owners, utilities, state, and federal agencies and the private sector to develop, analyze, and implement strategies for a highly competitive and rapidly changing marketplace. We support energy-efficiency initiatives with a broad range of services and expertise, including the following
Key to these capabilities is ICF’s proprietary energy simulation and analysis tool, the Building Energy Analysis Console, Beacon™.
Energy Analytics Models &Tools
Beacon™
Key to ICF’s building energy analytics capabilities is the proprietary energy simulation and analysis tool, the Building Energy Analysis Console, Beacon™.
Developed over the past l5 years, Beacon is an energy simulation tool based on DOE-2 which is the most widely used and accepted computer software model for estimating building energy performance. Beacon is capable of modeling a wide range of residential and commercial building types to determine the impact of occupant behavior, building characteristics, or external influences such as weather conditions and utility costs.
Beacon is capable of modeling individual buildings as well as conducting parametric analyses. For any given building, Beacon can estimate consumption and demand for every hour in the year. In addition, Beacon is optimized for policy level analysis. It can efficiently handle multitudes of parametric runs. For example, ICF completed an analysis that included the evaluation of more than 1.5 million housing configurations generated over a two-week period. This detailed yet efficient capability provides unparalleled resolution to make informed programmatic and policy decisions.
Energy Efficiency Potential Model (EEPM)
ICF International actively develops and maintains a sophisticated measure-based Energy Efficiency Potential Model (EEPM) that projects the technical, economic, and achievable potential of a wide range of gas and electric efficiency upgrades under several market intervention scenarios. Results of the model are used to design portfolios of energy efficiency and demand response programs for utilities, as inputs for integrated resource planning, and in models for greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction strategies.
EEPM utilizes several types of input data to project this potential:
- Baseline load forecasts segmented by sector, sub-sector (i.e., building type or SIC/NAICS code), end use, and technology type
- Savings and cost information for demand-side efficiency technologies
- Retail and wholesale energy cost forecasts
- Saturation of efficient end-use equipment already installed, and penetration of high-efficiency equipment in current equipment sales
The outputs include extensive data on the sectors, markets, building types, industries, end uses, and measures that promise the greatest opportunities for energy efficiency improvements. In addition, EEPM projects annual equipment, administrative, and monetary incentive costs required to purchase efficient equipment and to finance programs to stimulate the purchase of that equipment. It also produces custom load shapes for each program that can be used for integrated resource planning models.
Selected Projects
Building Energy Solutions Calculator (BESC), Owens Corning. ICF International developed a software-based tool for Owens Corning that assists builders in determining how to comply with the new home energy efficiency tax credits in the 2005 Energy Policy Act. While the tool has an incredibly simple interface, it is based on the robust DOE-2 hourly simulation program. It offers two unique features: a tiered approach and a cost optimization algorithm. The tiered approach allows users to enter as little as three pieces of information in the first level and a more complete description of current builder practices in the third level. The cost optimization algorithm assesses hundreds of thousands of energy efficiency upgrades for a particular combination of architectural characteristics and locations and selects a combination of upgrades that result in the most cost-effective way to achieve the required 50 percent savings in heating and cooling energy compared to the 2004 IECC. The BESC has been certified through the stringent guidelines set by the
Residential Energy Services Network
(RESNET) and adopted by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS). This software program has received national attention among the building community via an article in Builder magazine and the program’s debut at the 2006 Green Build Convention in Atlanta.
Predictive Energy and Demand Savings Tool, Centerpoint, Entergy, Oncor. ICF International has developed Predictive Savings Tools for use with the ENERGY STAR Homes and AC Distributor Market Transformation Programs in Texas. These tools have been developed since 2001 and allow the user to estimate peak demand and annual energy savings of homes submitted to the program using limited information such as the size of the home and the Home Energy Rating System (HERS) rating. These tools have been used to satisfy Public Utility Commissions audit process for estimating program energy and demand savings in Texas.
Demand Side Management (DSM) Program Filing, Potomac Energy Power Company (PEPCO). ICF International assisted PEPCO, a utility servicing the Mid-Atlantic region, with the filing of three-year DSM implementation plans for two different service territories. Assistance included characterizing the energy and cost savings of individual residential technologies, screening the measures for cost effectiveness, bundling the passing measures into utility-level programs, estimating achievable annual market penetration, determining program-level energy and demand impacts, and developing detailed implementation budgets.
Demand Side Management Potential Study, Dominion Virginia Power. ICF International estimated achievable DSM savings potential over a ten-year planning horizon for Dominion and surrounding service territories in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan region. The analysis encompassed both the residential and commercial sectors, including ten subsectors, and both new and existing construction. The steps included characterizing dozens of residential and commercial technologies for their cost, energy, and demand impacts; screening the measures for cost-effectiveness; bundling the passing measures into utility-level programs; and estimating achievable annual market penetration over the planning horizon. Characterization of the measures included extensive use of DOE-2 building energy simulation software that provides results for every hour of the year.
Demand Side Management Baseline and Market Potential Study, Arizona Public Service Company. ICF performed a comprehensive assessment of current energy efficiency practices in the Arizona Public Service territory, including seven different surveys of various residential, commercial, and industrial customer groups and trade allies, as well as site inspections and testing of new and existing residential homes. ICF used DOE2.1 to perform more than 600,000 individual simulations of building performance under various conditions, and used its Energy Efficiency Potential Model (EEPM) to forecast market adoption of both baseline and energy efficient technologies, and to assess the technical, economic, and market potential for more than 200 individual energy efficient technologies. ICF supported its analysis before regulators and a collaborative advisory committee.
Estimating the Potential for Energy Efficiency in Wisconsin. ICF International developed estimates of the technical, economic, and achievable potential for energy efficiency in the service territories of Wisconsin Electric and Wisconsin Public Service. The estimates were required as elements of the State of Wisconsin’s power plant certification process. ICF International developed a process-based energy accounting model that tracks energy using stock in the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors, and simulates the adoption of energy efficient technologies and practices over time. The model produces estimates of potential by end use and sector, and includes estimates of the costs of achieving different levels of energy efficiency potential. In the Wisconsin Electric and Wisconsin Public Service cases, ICF International converted annual estimated savings into hourly load shapes that were compatible with the Electric Generation Expansion Analysis System (EGEAS) capacity expansion model used by the companies. ICF International also drafted written testimony based on its analysis and served as an expert witness in the certification proceedings.
Building Design Assistance, CVS. ICF International provided building energy analyses for CVS drugstores. In-depth energy analyses were performed using the computer simulation tool DOE-2. Two prototype buildings were modeled in six cities to determine end-use loads and areas for targeting energy efficiency upgrades. Two levels of energy efficiency upgrades were modeled—typical technology upgrades and cutting-edge technology upgrades. Economic analyses were performed for each of the packages, and a report summarizing the recommendations was prepared.
LEED Analysis for the Blue Ridge Center for Environmental Stewardship, Blue Ridge Center. ICF International performed the energy component of a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) analysis for the Blue Ridge Center for Environmental Stewardship. Efforts involved modeling the building in DOE-2 to compare the energy efficiency of the building design to American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Standard 90.1-1999. Some of the unique characteristics of the building include geothermal heat pumps, photovoltaics, electric hot-water heater with a de-superheater, energy recovery ventilation, day lighting, structural insulated panels (SIPs) for walls and roof, and a passive solar design.
|
