The Facility Assessment Service: An Effective Design for Commercial and Industrial Multi-Resource Audits

David Van Holde, E SOURCE
Jean Shaffer, Seattle City Light
Marc Schuldt, SBW Consulting
Penny Cochrane, Willis Energy Ltd.

Keywords

Abstract

The Facility Assessment Service (FAS) program, designed in 1997 and implemented from 1998 to the present, represents a viable programmatic approach to utility operated multi-resource audits for commercial and industrial sector customers. Employing a formalized customer needs assessment dialogue as the basis for prioritizing resource audit focus and scope, followed by a technical audit and a follow-up action planning process. The FAS has been quite successful in identifying resource savings opportunities and motivating Seattle City Light (SCL) commercial and industrial customers to implement them. The FAS
identified almost 23,000,000 kWh (2.6 average megawatts) of electric energy conservation savings in its first 2 years of operation at SCL, with actual implementation of more than 9,000,000 kWh (1 average megawatt) by customers. In addition, substantial water and natural gas conservation opportunities were identified. Although partial funding through SCL incentive programs supported most of the conservation actions, fully 23% were financed entirely by the customers. The levelized costs for this program were 31 mills/kWh for the service area, 19 mills/kWh for the utility and 13 mills/kWh for the customer. This paper describes the design process, program design, implementation, and first 2 years’ evaluation results for this innovative audit program.