Client
Ontario Power Authority (OPA)
projeCt Description
Approximately 200 companies account for over 50 percent of the total electricity consumption in Ontario’s industrial sector. About a quarter of these large electricity consumers are connected to Ontario’s high-voltage transmission system, while the remaining smaller user companies are connected to local power distributors. To help these industrial companies improve their electricity use efficiency, the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) launched the Industrial Accelerator Program (IAP) and the Process and Systems Upgrade Initiatives (PSUI) in January and June 2010, respectively.
The OPA has hired independent experts to evaluate the various energy efficiency program components of IAP and PSUI.
Highlights
Econoler was mandated to evaluate the IAP and PSUI for the years of 2013 and 2014. It is likely that this evaluation mandate will be extended to cover the year of 2015 as well.
Econoler’s mandate involved making an evaluation of both the process and the impacts of the two programs (namely, IAP and PSUI). To fulfill this mandate, Econoler conducted the following activities:
- Conducting interviews with the OPA program staff;
- Designing survey questionnaires, interview guides and sampling plans for the surveys and in-depth interviews;
- Collecting data among participants, non‑participants, partial participants, trade allies, technical reviewers and local power distributors;
- Evaluating program designs by analyzing the data collected and identifying opportunities for improving the program processes;
- Performing benchmarking against similar programs run by other jurisdictions to corroborate the findings of this process evaluation;
- Calculating the gross and net savings as part the impact evaluation, as well as the additional savings generated through participation in enabling activities; and
- Estimating the total resource cost (TRC) and the program administrator cost (PAC).
This evaluation project also allowed determining other benefits and effects associated with the two programs, including direct employment effects and other socio-economic benefits. Furthermore, Econoler assessed the possibility for the OPA to align its industrial-sector energy efficiency programs with the requirements of the ISO 50001 standard.