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Electric utility demand-side management (DSM) programs affect the efficiency and timing of customer electricity use. As the number and cost of these programs increase, evaluations will become increasingly important. A key challenge is the role of evaluation in determining the amount of financial incentive that a utility earns for its DSM programs. Most regulatory incen tives for DSM programs depend on the net benefits provided by these programs. The total benefit is the reductions in electricity use and demand multiplied by the appropriate avoided costs (energy or capacity). The net benefit is the difference between total benefit and program cost. Evaluations determine the total benefits of DSM programs. This article presents a hypothetical example of problems that might arise when evaluations are subject to litigation, a likely occurrence when utility earnings depend on evaluation results. A hypothetical illustration is used because such incentives are so new that they have yet to be tested in regulatory proceedings. Possible resolutions to the problems raised by the hypothetical example are discussed.

Evaluation of energy-efficiency programs has come of age. Substantial progress has been made during the past decade in the development of methods to measure the cost and performance of such programs. These developments inlcude: use of quasi-experimental designs; use of fuel- consumption data to measure energy savings; weather-normalization of fuel-consumption data; consideration of nonresponse bias, self-selection, take-back and free riders; evaluation of long-term program effects; integration of outcomes and process evaluations; and use of data from a variety of sources. Program evaluators will face new challenges during the 1990s, largely because the role of energy-efficiency programs will expand greatly. These challenges include: integration of evaluation results with forecasts of energy use; conversion of evaluation results into a form useful for program planning; and development of standardized methods to conduct evaluations and to report evaluation results.

The Hood River Conservation Project (HRCP) was a major residential conservation project, intended to test the upper limits of a utility retrofit program. It was proposed by the Natural Resources Defense Council, funded by the Bonneville Power Administration (Bonneville) and operated by Pacific Power & Light Company (Pacific) in Hood River, Oregon. Thisfive-year, $20 million research and demonstration project installed as many cost-effective conservation measures in as many electrically heated homes in Hood River as possible. The measures were aimed at the building shell to reduce electricity use for space heating and at water-heating retrofits. This article summarizes the remarkable (and largely successful) efforts to design a comprehensive evaluation to address energy-policy issues important to the Pacific Northwest. Evaluation results are presented concerning project performance in three critical areas: the number of eligible households that participated, the number of recommended conservation actions adopted by participants and financed by HRCP, and the actual electricity use and savings achieved by HRCP.

Uncertainty is a critical factor that pervades all aspects of electric‐utility planning. Uncertainties about future load growth, about the continued performance of existing supply and demand resources, and about the costs, construction times, and operations of new resources greatly complicate utility resource acquisition. This paper discusses the factors that lead to uncertainty, reviews the methods that utilities use in planning and in acquiring resources, and suggests future research to help deal with these uncertainties. This review is based on assessments of the long‐term resource plans prepared by 10 utilities and one Public Service Commission, telephone interviews with staff at these 11 organizations and with staff at three consulting firms, and reviews of many other related publications.

During this period of reductions in government social programs, there is great value in developing program evaluation methods that are low cost and timely. This article explores the use of past evaluation data to develop statistical models useful in predicting future program performance. Model data requirements are much lower than those of evaluations, and models can yield policy results much more quickly. The modeling approach is used to develop a low-cost monitoring scheme for the Bonneville Power Administration Residential Weatherization Program. Three years of evaluation data (1981, 1982, and 1983) were utilized. The results suggest that the modeling approach is most effective when program characteristics and actors, and the external environment are stable over time. In our application, modeling results changed between 1982 and 1983. The article concludes with a discussion about the defensibility ofpredictions yielded by streamlined evaluations.

This evaluation focuses on the energy-saving effects of the Minnesota Northern States Power (NSP) Utility Residential Energy Conservation Programs, one and two years after participation. The study involved collection of a large data base of monthly natural gas consumption records for program participants and nonparticipants from October 1980 through May 1984. The NSP home energy audit yielded a small but statistically significant net energy saving, which increased slightly between the first and second postaudit years.