Everything you always wanted to know about evaluation but were afraid to ask: a new toolbox to answer your needs

Panel: 4. Monitoring and evaluation for greater impact

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Authors:
Paul van den Oosterkamp, TNO, The Netherlands
Boonekamp , TNO, The Netherlands
Jean-Sébastien Broc, IEECP, France

Abstract

Evaluating the impacts of energy efficiency policies can be complex and tricky. There is a lot of experience available, which can make it difficult when one looks for answers to specific questions. The EPATEE project developed a toolbox to support stakeholders to find the right resources that fit their needs.

The toolbox helps defining their evaluation approach with an interactive user interface that pro-vides users with practical guidance tailored to 30 combinations of sector, policy instrument and method for evaluating energy savings. The toolbox is primarily focused on ex-post impact evalua-tion.

The specific guidance for energy savings calculations takes into account the diversity of situations (e.g. evaluation objectives, level of expertise, data availability) and covers methodological (e.g. defining the baseline, factors to take into account) as well as practical (e.g. data collection, quality, resources needed) aspects. Other guidance was developed or gathered about cross-cutting is-sues, such as evaluating net energy savings or comparing estimated and measured energy savings.

In addition, links to or storage of existing resources have been arranged to provide an easy access to guidance about general principles and approaches of evaluation other than impact evaluation (e.g. process evaluation, cost-benefit analysis, market transformation). Likewise, this deals with evaluation of impacts other than energy savings. Feedback from stakeholders also showed the im-portance to include guidance about how to integrate evaluation into the policy cycle.

This short paper describes briefly the background and how the toolbox was developed. It is illustrated with examples of evaluations that can be done with the toolbox. The display will make it possible for participants to test and comment on the toolbox. This is meant for all types of users, from beginners to evaluation experts.