October 31, 2012

MEMORANDUM FOR: JOHN CONTI

ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR FOR ENERGY 

ANALYSIS

 PAUL HOLTBERG 

TEAM LEADER

ANALYSIS INTEGRATION TEAM

JAMES TURNURE

DIRECTOR

OFFICE OF ENERGY CONSUMPTION AND EFFICIENCY 

ANALYSIS

FROM: BUILDINGS CONSUMPTION & EFFICIENCY ANALYSIS 

TEAM

SUBJECT: Second AEO2013 Buildings Sector Working Group Meeting 

Summary (presented on 10-04-2012)

Attendees: Erin Boyd (DOE PI)

James Berry (EIA OES)

Katie Lewis (EIA OES)

Danielle Mayclin (EIA OES)

Fred Mayes (EIA OEA)

Bill McNary (EIA OES)

Jay Olsen (EIA OES)

Alan Swenson (EIA OES)

Attending by Phone: John Ackerly (Alliance for Green Heat)

Justin Baca (SEIA)

Matthias Bell (Rocky Mountain Institute)

JD Doliner (Alliance for Green Heat)

Xiaojing Sun (Georgia Tech)

Alexander Smith (Georgia Tech)

Frances Wood (OnLocation)Sonia Yeh (UC Davis)

Presenters: Erin Boedecker

Owen Comstock

Behjat Hojjati

Kevin Jarzomski

David Peterson

Steve Wade

WORKING GROUP PRESENTATION FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSES ONLY
2

DO NOT QUOTE OR CITE AS RESULTS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE

The buildings presentation provided a discussion of the progress on projects and preliminary 

results for AEO 2013. An overview of the projects discussed is included in the presentation 

materials provided as a separate attachment.

Specific discussion/questions:

1. When discussing residential consumption projections by fuel, a participant asked 

about the reduction in electricity consumption given the increase in cooling degree 

days. The declines in lighting and other end uses were discussed. After the meeting 

EIA staff discovered a glitch in the presentation slide. Although electricity intensity 

is expected to decline, with the correction, electricity consumption increases over the 

projection period in the preliminary results.

2. Solar-related discussion included comments that third-party financing for solar 

photovoltaic (PV) systems could result in an instantaneous positive cash flow for the 

end user and that the majority of commercial systems being installed do use thirdparty financing. NEMS does not currently include this type of financing option, but 

residential systems are being modeled as financed with the mortgage. A participant 

also commented that the average installed cost for PV in Germany is about half the 

cost in the U.S. and a what-if scenario using these costs would be interesting. EIA 

staff responded that alternative cases included in the AEO do use lower cost 

assumptions for PV including a low cost renewables case and the No Sunset and 

Extended Policy cases that extend the current 30 percent tax credit throughout the 

projection period. Another participant added that the difference in PV costs between 

the U.S. and Germany are primarily in the area of soft costs: permitting, installation, 

etc. and the reductions may not extrapolate to the U.S.

3. Participants asked for an explanation of the increase in potential penetration in 

existing commercial buildings to one-tenth the penetration into new construction. 

EIA staff explained that penetration is modeled in terms of a share of new 

construction. Existing buildings provide a much larger market than new construction, 

so a smaller share still constitutes a large number of systems. During the discussion 

of EIA’s increase in near-term commercial PV installations to capture recent trends 

and programs, a participant mentioned a new report available at SEIA’s website on 

the recent trend in commercial installations.

4. A participant commented that even with increased PV capacity, the amount of 

attention being paid to a technology that doesn’t amount to a lot of energy is 

surprising.

Complete Listing of Invitees:

Ackerly, John (Alliance for Green Heat)

Alex, Aileen (DOE)

Alschuler, Elena (DOE EERE)

Amann, Jennifer (ACEEE)

Ames, Mark (ASHRAE)

Anderson, David (PNNL)

Antypas, Yanna (EIA OEA)
3

Baca, Justin (SEIA)

Baek, Young Sun (ORNL)

Barbour, Edward (Navigant)

Barker, Breton Nmn (DOE EERE)

Bell, Mathias (Rocky Mountain Institute)

Belzer, Dave (PNNL)

Bergman, Aaron (DOE PI)

Berry, James (EIA OES)

Blessing, Colleen (EIA OC)

Brodrick, James (DOE EERE)

Broene, Thomas (EIA)

Brown, Marilyn (Georgia Tech)

Carroll, Ryan (Alliance for Green Heat)

Cogan, Jonathan (EIA OC)

Conti, John (EIA OEA)

Cureg, Edgardo (EIA OES)

Cymbalsky, John H (DOE EERE)

Daniels, David (EIA OEA)

deLaski, Andrew (Appliance Standards Awareness Project

Dion, Jerry (DOE EERE)

Dirks, James A (PNNL)

Doliner, JD (Alliance for Green Heat)

Drury, Easan (NREL)

Farese, Philip (NREL)

Friedrichs, Mark (DOE EERE)

Garg, Rishi (Office of the People’s Counsel-DC)

Gruenspecht, Howard (EIA) Harris, Jeff (ASE)

Harvey, Stephen (EIA OES)

Henry, Dave (DOC)

Holtberg, Paul (EIA OEA)

Kaarsberg, Tina (DOE EERE)

Kelso, Jordan (D&R International)

Laitner, Skip (ACEEE)

Larsen, John (DOE PI)

Leifman, Michael (GE)

Lewis, Katie (EIA OES)

Lu, Ruey-Pyng (EIA OES)

Majersik, Cliff (IMT)

Margolis, Robert (NREL)

Marnay, Chris (LBNL)

Mayclin, Danielle (EIA OES)

Mayes, Fred (EIA OEA)

McDonald, Sean (PNNL)
4

McNary, William (EIA OES)

Michaels, Joelle (EIA OES)

Mignone, Bryan NMN (DOE PI)

Neff, Shirley (EIA)

Neubauer, Max (ACEEE)

Nicholls, Andrew (PNNL)

Niebling, Charles (Alliance for Green Heat)

Nordman, Bruce (LBNL)

O'Brien, Eileen (EIA OES)

Olsen, Jay (EIA OES)

Pearson, Gina (EIA)

Ramea, Kalai (UC Davis)

Rosenquist, Gregory J. (LBNL)

Sachs, Harvey (ACEEE)

Steinberg, Daniel (NREL)

Stellberg, Sarah (IMT)

Stokes, Kem (DOC)

Swenson, Alan (EIA OES)

Taylor, Cody nmn (DOE EERE)

Ulrey, Peri (NGSA)

Utzman-O'Neill, Diane (HHT)

Wang, Joy (Georgia Tech)

Wang, Yu (Georgia Tech) Wiser, Ryan (LBNL)

Wood, Frances (On Location)

Xiaojing, Sun (Georgia Tech)

Yeh, Sonia (UC Davis)