Advancing Efficiency Through Community Engagement

October 29, 2009 2:00-3:30pm Eastern

What's It About?

The Marshfield Energy Challenge achieved a savings of two megawatts and 25 megawatt hours in under a year by successfully engaging 850 residences and businesses in one small Massachusetts town in this innovative community energy efficiency program. Susan Haselhorst of NSTAR will present the program design and findings as part of this webinar.

Want an innovative way to improve efficiency in a given community? How about tasking the community members with developing the program themselves? This is how ComEd’s Community Energy Challenge for Chicagoland Communities works. Learn how individual efficiency-minded communities were selected and how the utility is partnering with them in this challenge in which communities compete to craft the best energy-saving initiative.

What is Ask the Experts?

This webinar is part of the Ask the Experts series of free workshops presented in webinar format to help new or prospective efficiency program administrators tackle specific energy efficiency program issues. The format is both informative and interactive, so be sure to bring your questions.

Who Should Attend?

Ask the Experts is open to new administrators of energy efficiency programs, state regulators, and employees of CEE members. Contractors and consultants are currently excluded. Others may participate by personal invitation of CEE.

This session will offer examples of CEE member programs that have reached out into local communities to promote energy efficiency through behavior change. This webinar will illustrate for participants how strategies such as community-based marketing, cross-sector program design, and careful evaluation planning can create successful energy efficiency programs. The session will demonstrate how utilities have focused community efforts on both the residential and commercial sectors and have successfully tapped into schools, local businesses, media, and other community resources to change residents’ behavior and realize their energy efficiency goals.