Three years after participation: electricity savings due to the BPA Residential Weatherization Pilot Program

The Bonneville Power Administration operated a Residential Weatherization Pilot Program from 1980 through 1982. The program provided free home energy audits to 7200 electrically heated homes in the Pacific Northwest and gave zero-interest loans to weatherize 4100 of these homes. The total cost of the program was almost $11 million. This report estimates the net energy-saving effect of the BPA program (i.e., the electricity saving that can be directly attributed to the program) as well as the total energy saving. The data used in this analysis include one year of preprogram and three years of postprogram electricity consumption records. The first stage of our method involves estimation of weather adjusted annual electricity consumption for each household. The second stage uses this weather adjusted consumption as the dependent variable in a pooled time-series/cross-section regression model of electricity use.