Background: Small and medium-sized buildings face significant market barriers to procuring deep energy efficiency retrofits. The complexity of the current market offerings and a lack of clarity regarding whole building, integrated retrofit options, produces uncertainty in the marketplace, ultimately paralyzing potential consumers and constraining the amount of comprehensive, quality, cost-effective projects that are completed. While a number of piecemeal solutions exist, there is a need to comprehensively reevaluate the retrofit process in order to transform the market.
Project Goal: The goal of this project is to facilitate market transformation by standardizing and lowering the cost of the energy audit process, method, and analysis used by industry.
Project Details: A central part of our market transformation strategy is the development of portfolio-level, energy auditing and decision-making methods and tools. The UC Davis Energy Efficiency Center (EEC) has developed a preliminary set of methods and analysis tools for building audits and retrofit recommendations focusing on K-12 schools and convenience shopping centers. Researchers will expand the preliminary methods and tools to encompass a broader variety of small and medium commercial buildings. In addition, we will expand audit methods and tools to include water measures and deployment of distributed renewables.
Lead Research Unit: UC Davis Energy Efficiency Center
Principal Investigator: Dr. Alan Meier & Dr. Frank Loge
Associated Staff/Researchers: Siva Gunda
