Whitepapers
Vermont's 2023 Energy Burden Report
Vermonters spend, on average, 11 percent of their household income on energy. That’s more than one in every ten dollars spent on heating, driving, and keeping the lights on.
Evaluating Equity and Justice Impacts of Energy Efficiency Projects
Researchers looked at equality, equity and justice in energy efficiency projects, and identified ways to capture the broader societal impacts of efficiency efforts to both boost equitable outcomes and foster thriving communities.
Energy Resilience: Critical Load Support in Commercial and Residential Applications
This paper evaluated three Efficiency Vermont demonstration projects around energy resilience: a microgrid in a housing complex, heating/cooling projects using phase change materials, and modeling around indoor temperature change after a power outage. Insights from this evaluation can inform design and construction professionals, as well as regulators, about the most cost-effective ways to implement resilience, from simple and inexpensive options to expensive projects.
Greenhouse Gas Reduction: Simulating Grid Effects of EVs, Batteries and Solar in Vermont
A computer model simulated a Vermont neighborhood of about 100 homes with different amounts of solar panels, electric vehicles, and in-home batteries. These distributed energy resources (DERs) can have beneficial effects for the grid, and help manage increased energy loads without expensive infrastructure investments.
Resilience: The Role of Energy Storage in Meeting Vermont’s Energy Goals
Utility-scale batteries and other long-duration energy storage technology will need to be deployed on a large scale to stabilize Vermont's grid and meet demand when renewables like solar and wind are intermittent. Comprehensive planning with regional grid partners is necessary if all forms of energy storage are to work in concert to meet the needs of the grid.
Greenhouse Gas Reduction: Residential Rate Calculator
Could alternative electricity rates save customers money? This paper used a rate calculator and found that variable rates can in fact lower costs with no change in customer behavior. Utilities could use such a calculator to manage the electrical grid by incentivizing customers to use less or more energy at specific times.
Greenhouse Gas Reduction: Delivering Value to Commercial Customers with Load Shape Segmentation
Advanced meter data and analysis can identify commercial operations with similar energy use patterns, pinpointing untapped savings and finding customers well-suited to efficiency programs—delivering both savings and grid benefits.
Comfortable, Healthy, and Saving Money: Linking Building Occupants’ Health to Energy Efficiency Programs
Healthcare payers, like hospitals and health insurers, could leverage "energy plus health" strategies that realize health benefits from energy efficiency projects. Similarly, government institutions and philanthropic organizations could support vulnerable or marginalized communities and businesses with programs that reduce air pollution, improve indoor air quality, and boost housing safety and affordability through initiatives that consider both energy efficiency and health outcomes.
Embodied and Operational Emissions in Retrofitting Vermont Homes
What's the "Carbon Smart" approach to weatherization?
Healthy Homes Vermont 2021
Efficiency Vermont collaborated with regional hospitals and the Vermont Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) to deliver energy-plus-health services to low-income households.
Explorations in School Indoor Air Quality
Analyzing data from free indoor air quality monitors to study the effects of HVAC modifications in 11 Vermont schools.
Greenhouse Gas Impacts of Structural Materials in Commercial New Construction
Quantifying the global warming potential reduction of using wood and mass timber products in place of steel and concrete when constructing commercial buildings.
Energy Resilience: Critical Load Support in Commercial and Residential Applications
Three independent investigations into materials and methods for increasing energy resilience.
Cold Chain Optimization 2021
Investigating two opportunities for saving energy and lowering carbon emissions in the cold chain – the processes and technologies that keep preserve products from harvest to retail sale.
Analysis of State Approaches to Cost-Effectiveness Testing
A look at how benefits and costs of energy efficiency, flexible load management, and electrification distributed energy resources are treated in jurisdictions around the nation.
AMI 360: Deeper Energy Efficiency via Advanced Regression Modeling
How advanced metering infrastructure analysis can provide facility managers with energy- and cost-saving insights.
Assessing the Electrical Grid Greenhouse Gas Impact of Strategic Electrification
As more and more energy uses are electrified, what will be the greenhouse gas impact to the grid that powers them?
Weatherization Workforce Plan
A report to the Vermont General Assembly on the coordinated delivery of a standardized statewide building sciences curriculum
Healthy Homes Vermont 2020
Many Vermonters in low-income households are at a greater risk of health problems than are high-income households. Collectively the partners are testing innovative energy-plus-health collaboration pilots and whether these models may be scaled to a cost-effective component of energy efficiency programs statewide. This report addresses the progress achieved in 2020.
What’s going on in there? Interpretable Machine Learning for Deeper Energy Savings
Efficiency Vermont set out to learn if and how explainable artificial intelligence (XAI)2 approaches could drive adoption of cutting-edge machine learning models for energy modeling at customer facilities.