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Weatherization Plus -- Next Generation

What is Weatherization Plus

Weatherization Plus describes the evolution of the Weatherization Assistance Program from its traditional focus on heating and cooling energy conservation to an expanded focus on whole-house energy usage and whole-community efforts. The whole-house approach incorporates advanced technologies and addresses the comprehensive energy usage in low-income homes, as well as related health and safety improvements. The whole-community approach enables Weatherization providers to serve as a resource for community-based efforts to conserve energy, boost economic activity, and improve the environment.

Weatherization Plus Tools

As part of the Weatherization Plus effort to plan the continued evolution of the Weatherization Program, a subcommittee was formed to increase the consistency of quality weatherization services delivered to low-income homes across the country.

To this end, the Weatherization Plus subcommittee and the Weatherization Trainers Consortium have published a set of core competencies designed to increase awareness and raise expectations in the Program.

Core Competencies Document

Core Competencies Matrix

These competencies were compiled from the course offerings of several weatherization training centers and from the technical program standards of several states.

WEATHERIZATION PLUS -- THE NEXT GENERATION

With all successful ventures, there must be continual evolution. The Weatherization Program, for almost three decades, has demonstrated its inherent ability to transform and evolve to meet the continual changing needs of the nation's poor. Challenged by today's housing stock, the Weatherization Program continues to seek out technological advancements and ingenious approaches to address the issues facing the Program. However, while a great deal of emphasis is placed on the activities underway today; the Program prepares to meet the challenges of tomorrow.

Next Generation -- Team Result

In collaboration with the partners throughout the network, the Program will develop clear, concise strategies for the next five years that are consistent with the Program Mission and Vision. These strategies will ensure the continued evolution of the National Program through the implementation of Weatherization Plus while ensuring the program meets production goals and captures data points that assist in articulating and justifying the Program results.

WEATHERIZATION PLUS CREDITS

Since the inception of Weatherization Plus, the Program has experienced transformation at every level. The flexibility of the regulations and legislation now allow program staff to leverage resources and re-shape their programs to better meet the needs of the low-income clients served. Technological capabilities have been raised across the country, allowing for better services and training techniques throughout the nation. And the resources that have come into the Program over the last several years have dramatically increased the types of services the Program can provide and the number of homes it can serve.

Following is a partial list of the activities and actions resulting from the Weatherization Plus movement:

• Statutory changes restructured the method of computing the average cost per home, increasing the funds invested into each home served.
• Regulations were amended to add additional priority groups (high energy burden and high energy users) and to create separate categories for heath and safety expenditures and vehicle purchases.
• Advocacy and leveraging-related activities undertaken by the national Weatherization network has resulted in an increase of $86 million per year in nonfederal funding for low-income energy efficiency.
• Weatherization Trainers have organized to share information and raise the state of the practice for Weatherization workers.
• The National Energy Audit Tool was revised, incorporating whole-house weatherization components into the software for use by practitioners.
• A refrigerator replacement toolkit was developed and distributed nationally to assist agencies in assessing whether appliance replacement (on a case by case basis) would be cost-effective.
• Trainers and energy professionals were brought into the "Hot Climate Initiative" to support the incorporation of more advanced techniques and technologies, including electric base load measures, to help the hot climate states achieve higher energy savings per household, and to leverage additional funds to reach more households.
• "Best Practices" studies were funded to establish baseline goals for zonal pressure diagnostics, testing cookstoves for carbon monoxide emissions, building tightness limits, duct testing, worst case draft testing, and train-the-trainer curriculum.

Representatives from the network, led by our Association partner NASCSP, developed a Weatherization Public Information Campaign to spread the message about the work being accomplished across the nation for the low-income families served. This effort included the launching and annual celebration of Weatherization Day on October 30.

Why was Weatherization Plus developed?

Weatherization services are delivered by an established network of local Weatherization providers. Through diverse partnerships with other federal, state, community, and private entities, many Weatherization agencies have demonstrated the capability to deliver expanded services in low-income homes. Weatherization Plus has been developed to foster this capability within the full network of providers and to magnify the benefits produced through weatherization.

What is the goal of Weatherization Plus?

The goal of Weatherization Plus is to achieve significantly greater energy cost savings for more low-income households and to increase the Program's contribution to the economic and environmental health and sustainability of the nation's communities.

What are the strategies for achieving the Weatherization Plus goal?

• Increase the network's flexibility and access, through legislative/regulatory program improvements, exchange of information on successes and new opportunities, and interagency partnerships.
• Advance the network's technological capabilities, through an integrated strategy of training and technical assistance.

Expand resources available to the network, to support systematic incorporation of the whole-house approach and delivery of whole-community services.

Background

Discussions about strategic planning for the evolution of the Weatherization Assistance Program first began in the fall of 1998, at the Weatherization State Program Managers' Meeting in Brooklyn, New York. As an outcome of the Brooklyn discussions, a planning group, called the Weatherization Millennium Committee, was formed. The committee included state, local and federal staff, in addition to representatives from the National Association for State Community Services Programs (NASCSP) and the National Community Action Foundation (NCAF).

The Millennium Committee developed a visionary report containing a strategy for strengthening and expanding the Weatherization Assistance Program for the future. Named "Weatherization Plus : Opportunities for the 21st Century," this strategic plan urged the Department to support the network of state and local Weatherization agencies in flexibly adopting a whole-house approach and a whole-community approach to better serve low-income Americans.

The goal of Weatherization Plus is to enable the Weatherization Assistance Program to achieve significantly greater energy cost savings for more low-income households and to increase the Program's contribution to the economic and environmental health and sustainability of our nation's communities.

When the original Weatherization Millennium Committee's work was completed, a follow-on group, called the Millennium Implementation Planning Committee (nicknamed the "MIC") took the vision of the first Committee and transferred it into an implementation plan. The MIC expanded upon the membership of the original Committee to include representation of the interests of Native American tribes, training centers and other stakeholders. With input from the entire network, the MIC formulated a series of action steps to lay the groundwork for Weatherization Plus . Actions were defined in the context of the three main strategies that the original committee established. They are:

• Increase the network's flexibility through legislative/regulatory program improvements, and facilitating the role of Weatherization agencies in interactions with other community-based initiatives.
• Advance the network's technological capabilities through an integrated strategy of training and technical assistance to employ new and advanced technologies which have been determined to be cost-effective, but have not been readily available to the Weatherization network in the past.
• Expand resources available to the network through exchange of information on successes and new opportunities, interagency partnerships, appropriations at state and federal levels, and other leveraged funds from multiple sources.

In May of 2000, an update on Weatherization Plus was provided via a report entitled: "Progress Report on Weatherization Plus : Steps to New Opportunities in the 21st Century." It reported on the status of the 18 specific actions that the MIC defined to lay the groundwork for success assuming eventual broader network implementation when the necessary resources become available. Another update was issued in June 2001, entitled, "Weatherization Plus Progress Report: Poised to Move Forward."

Increase the Network's Flexibility

• In October of 2000, statutory changes were made to the Program to restructure the method of which states compute their average cost per home; eliminate the separate per dwelling capital intensive improvements category; increase the average cost per home to $2,500; and, eliminate the requirement that 40% of funds used to weatherize a home be spent for materials.
• On December 8, 2000, the Weatherization Program regulations were amended to, among other things, add high-energy burden and high-energy user categories for priority service; to create a separate category for health and safety expenditures and vehicle purchases; and, to revise the date for reweatherization from 1985 to 1993.

DOE has commissioned Economic Opportunity Studies to perform a number of tasks in support of an expanded role for subgrantees in the area of community-based interactions that goes beyond weatherizing individual buildings. Recently undertaken, the study will: develop a report on 2-4 case studies of subgrantees' successful work going beyond traditional weatherization services in their communities; identify other federal programs whose resources could be used by Weatherization subgrantees to expand work in their service areas; report on other federal programs funded for 2001 which may be appropriate sources of coordinated community/weatherization/sustainable development resources; and provide a catalogue of case studies.

Weatherization Plus Example - North Carolina

The Choanoke Area Development Association (CADA), a local Weatherization provider in North Carolina, is the lead agency in the Roanoke-Chowan Rebuild America Partnership. The CADA Weatherization staff are heavily involved in the multi-million dollar renovation of a historic school building into apartments for the elderly. They are being trained as "Building Owner Agents" and will audit the buildings, interact with lenders on financing, secure vendors from a qualified pool, and commission the building. They will be compensated on a fee-for-service basis built into the retrofit financing package and funded by the energy savings.

Advance the Network's Technological Capabilities

• A System to Identify and Review New Technologies/Techniques Committee (SITcom) was formed to accelerate the integration of new technologies and techniques into the Weatherization Program. An on-line tool is being developed, which will help to identify and review new and emerging technologies/techniques as well as those that are developed/applied in the field, but are not widely integrated. It will provide a technology transfer mechanism for the network and a national forum for peer exchange.
• A Weatherization Trainers Group was established to create an Information Exchange System for Weatherization trainers. The Trainers Group seeks to raise the state of the practice for Weatherization training by increasing communication among Weatherization trainers, thereby improving training practices and improving the integration of existing and advanced technologies. The group includes trainers from every region of the country.
• In order to move towards implementing whole-house weatherization, a whole-house version of the National Energy Audit Tool (NEAT) was undertaken. The latest Windows version of NEAT with some whole-house components was released to the network March, 2001.
• A Whole-House Audit Team (WHAT) was established to increase the technical base of the Weatherization network to employ whole-house energy audits. This project seeks to explore the relevant issues and make recommendations on the best ways to provide the needed tools to the weatherization network. The WHAT performs a number of activities such as: providing input to ORNL on electric bas load measures in NEAT; reviewing whole-house capabilities of existing energy audit software; developing requirements and procedures for non-NEAT states to successfully incorporate electric base load measures into their Weatherization programs; and providing input for DOE to issue policy for approval of state-submitted whole-house audits (based on requirements and procedures developed above).

A project was undertaken to examine the potential for achieving savings of 30% by the Weatherization Program, consistent with the goals of the Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing (PATH) initiate (operated by HUD). The analysis of savings potential in four Census regions of typical and high-energy use homes indicates that there is substantial potential to increase cost-effective savings with existing technologies and that there is particular potential to achieve 30% savings in high-energy-use housing stock in colder climates.

Weatherization Plus Example - Hawaii

Hawaii's Weatherization Program utilizes advanced technology to reduce energy bills for low-income households and to reduce dependence on imported oil. Local Weatherization agencies are using leveraged funds to implement solar pilot projects. DOE Partnered with OCS, Hawaii Housing Authority, Honolulu Community Action Program, and Hawaiian Electric Company in a pilot project to install solar water heaters in low-income, multi-family dwellings in the city and county of Honolulu on the island of Oahu. After the solar measures were installed, the low-income families saved an average of $400 on their annual energy bills.

Expand Resources Available to the Network

• Oak Ridge National Laboratory evaluated the potential to leverage additional weatherization resources through NOx emissions trading. The study indicates that the likely value of emissions trading allowances will be very modest and that benefits to the Weatherization Program will be minimal.
• A MIC workgroup comprised of representatives from NASCSP, NCAF, D&R and DOE developed a Weatherization Public Information Campaign (PIC) to spread the message about the work being done by Weatherization agencies across the nation. The goals of the PIC are to raise awareness of Weatherization and to expand opportunities for state and local agencies to build partnerships, leverage resources, and improve services delivered to low-income families. Tools and resources developed by the group are available on the WAPTAC Web site (www.waptac.org).

Efforts are continuing in the area of electric industry restructuring to leverage additional resources. Activities are on-going with the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates, the Ad Hoc Low-Income Advocates Peer Exchange, and the NCAF. The current focus in on leveraging activity in warm-climate regions and on assessing and communicating the impact of California market events to the network. Current estimates indicate that approximately $166 million per annum is being committed to low-income energy efficiency with utility rate-payer financing nationwide.

Weatherization Plus Example - New York

Weatherization technicians provide comprehensive energy efficiency solutions for low-income families and also serve as an energy efficiency resource to the community. Several local Weatherization agencies in New York are participating in an innovative utility restructuring pilot project, funded through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to aggregate low-income clients and act as an energy broker on behalf of this group. The goal is to secure a fair rate for low-income households and ensure the continued provision of energy efficiency and consumer support services.

Additional Efforts

Based on DOE grant, the Chicago Region Weatherization states have been working on a number of research projects designed to develop "Best Practices" for use in the Weatherization Program. The eight states in the region have also contributed funding and raised additional dollars for these projects. Areas of research focused on zonal pressure diagnostics, testing cookstoves for carbon monoxide emissions, building tightness limits, duct testing, worst case draft testing, and a train-the-trainer curriculum. The results of this project were shared at a regional conference in July 2001 and at the National Weatherization Training Conference in November 2001.

In May 2001, DOE sponsored a meeting of the 17 states with significant "hot climate" areas, to re-launch a set of initiatives targeted to their particular issues and opportunities. These initiatives will support the incorporation of more advanced technologies and techniques, including electric base load measures, which will help these states to achieve higher energy savings per household, and to leverage additional funds so they can reach more households.

Content updated on 6/9/2008