Energy Trust of Oregon's Existing Buildings program—which includes its Strategic Energy Management (SEM) program—began in 2003 and serves Portland General Electric (PGE), Pacific Power, NW Natural, Cascade Natural Gas, and Avista commercial customers.
This 2018 program evaluation was designed to assess program delivery success and challenges, operational effectiveness, and customer satisfaction; and provide recommendations for program delivery improvements.
Specifically for its SEM efforts, the evaluation determined 1) If and to what extent participating in the SEM track of the Existing Buildings program affects a commercial customer’s likelihood of completing a capital project to install energy efficiency equipment through an Energy Trust program, and 2) Estimate the impact that SEM participation has on the size of the capital project as measured by energy saved through the project (electricity and/or gas) and the size of the incentive (measured in dollars) paid to the participant.