WORKING GROUP PRESENTATION FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSES ONLY.

DO NOT QUOTE OR CITE AS RESULTS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

July 11, 2019

MEMORANDUM FOR: Stephen K. Nalley

Acting Assistant Administrator for Energy Analysis

FROM: Jim Turnure 

Director, Office of Energy Consumption and Efficiency Analysis

SUBJECT: Summary of AEO2020 Buildings Working Group 1 held on May 23, 2019

This memorandum provides an overview of the presentation given at the first Annual Energy Outlook 

2020 (AEO2020) Buildings Working Group meeting and summarizes discussion. The meeting covered

possible AEO2020 updates, including near-term modeling changes and long-term projects that may 

affect results in subsequent AEOs. The presentation for this meeting is available in a separate document.

AEO2019 debrief

The discussion began with a debrief of AEO2019. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) staff 

reminded participants that AEO2019 results included updates to both residential and commercial major 

end-use equipment cost and performance characteristics, as well as an update of the residential model’s 

base year using 2015 Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) data.

EIA then shared consumption by sector and fuel and solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity projections in the 

residential and commercial buildings sectors. One participant asked what EIA assumes regarding PV 

installation costs in new versus existing construction. EIA staff clarified that PV costs represent national 

averages and do not differentiate between new and existing construction; however, the models do 

make assumptions regarding limits on the amount of PV penetration into existing construction because 

of possible technical constraints.

Another participant asked if EIA has investigated any low-demand scenarios. EIA noted that it is still 

finalizing side cases for AEO2020, although typical side cases include both High and Low Macroeconomic 

Activity cases.

A participant asked if the models include explicit net metering assumptions for solar PV. For the 

residential sector, electricity is sold to the grid at the retail rate, but commercial generation is sold at the 

wholesale price of electricity.
WORKING GROUP PRESENTATION FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSES ONLY.

DO NOT QUOTE OR CITE AS RESULTS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

AEO2020 model updates

Major updates anticipated for AEO2020 include updating distributed generation (DG) and combined 

heat and power technology menus based on updated contractor data. AEO2020 will also incorporate

residential wood consumption from the 2015 RECS.

Additional model changes for AEO2020 include an updated representation of commercial distributed 

generation. This effort will use statistical methods to better project DG adoption, updating assumptions 

and penetration constraints (e.g., rooftop area suitable for PV and new versus existing construction) to 

fit recent historical data. Commercial sector minor fuel consumption projections will also be revised to 

use more recent historical prices and consumption data for propane, motor gasoline, residual fuel oil, 

kerosene, and coal.

New future federal energy efficiency standards, including those related to portable air conditioners, 

uninterruptible power supplies, and commercial boilers, remain uncertain. These new standards have

not been published in the Federal Register. If these new standards are promulgated before the 

Reference case is finalized, AEO2020 will reflect the new specifications as they affect major end-use 

equipment and miscellaneous electric loads. Based on the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) recently 

released spring regulatory agenda, no additional standards are likely to be finalized during AEO2020 

production. Any new ENERGY STAR® specifications will be incorporated. EIA is also tracking the status of 

a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to roll back the January 2017 expanded definition of general service 

lamps and general service incandescent lamps. The definition change will be incorporated if finalized 

during AEO2020 production.

AEO2020 will also include updates to historical data on sectoral energy consumption, weather, new 

heating equipment shares, and utility energy efficiency incentives.

Medium-term research

Two medium-term contractor tasks are under development. The first contractor report will investigate 

the impacts of low-income energy efficiency and weatherization projects, including utility, state, 

regional, or federal incentives, on residential energy consumption. In addition, model inputs will be 

developed to project the effects of both low-income and non-low-income weatherization of homes.

The second contractor report will characterize whole-building sensor and control technologies. These 

technologies include lighting and heating, cooling, and ventilation controls; wired and wireless sensors 

and sensor networks; building energy management systems software; automated fault detection and 

diagnosis; and whole-building sub-metering.

Some of the efforts involving these tasks may be incorporated into AEO2020 as time and data 

availability permit; otherwise, these reports will be used in future AEO cycles. Final reports should be 

available and posted to the web in the fall of 2019.

Long-term research

The EIA Buildings Analysis Team is currently conducting research that may affect the results of AEOs 

subsequent to this release. EIA currently plans to investigate how battery storage technologies for 

buildings—included in the ongoing DG report—could be modeled within the National Energy Modeling 

System (NEMS).
WORKING GROUP PRESENTATION FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSES ONLY.

DO NOT QUOTE OR CITE AS RESULTS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

EIA also currently plans to research alternative rate policies for distributed generation electricity (i.e., 

retail versus wholesale rate for sales back to the grid).

Discussion

The RECS survey manager provided a brief overview of the 2020 RECS and noted that a webinar on the 

upcoming survey will take place in July 2019.

EIA reminded attendees that they could access AEO data via an online data table browser that can 

display customized year ranges and generate comparison graphs. EIA’s Application Programming 

Interface (API) add-on tools for Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets can also be used to analyze various 

EIA product and survey data.

An attendee asked if EIA is considering modeling time-of-use (TOU) electricity rates. EIA staff discussed 

investigating the interactions between supply and demand modules of NEMS and how to account for 

wholesale, retail, or blended electricity rates. The demand modules are annual and therefore do not 

have daily load shapes, while the supply modules do account for some seasonality/greater time 

granularity.

A participant asked how EIA is using Stanford University’s DeepSolar data (specifically whether satelliteimaging timestamps are used). Imaging timestamps are not explicitly used in EIA's econometric hurdle 

models for residential PV adoption.

Regarding historical residential equipment market shares, one participant asked if only space heating 

equipment is benchmarked annually or if other end uses are adjusted as well. Because the residential 

model makes space cooling decisions based on space heating equipment choices, EIA has focused on the 

space heating end use, aligning with Characteristics of New Housing data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 

Survey of Construction.

Following a question about EIA’s treatment of fuel-switching activities in New England, staff noted that 

the NEMS residential and commercial demand modules operate at the U.S. census division level rather 

than state level although EIA is keeping an eye on electrification trends in general.

When asked what side cases would be included for AEO2020, EIA mentioned the typical side cases 

included with each release: Reference, High/Low Economic Growth, High/Low oil price, and High/Low 

Oil and Gas Resource and Technology. In addition, EIA will include High/Low Renewables Cost cases for 

AEO2020.
WORKING GROUP PRESENTATION FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSES ONLY.

DO NOT QUOTE OR CITE AS RESULTS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

Onsite attendees

Name Affiliation

Jared Langevin Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL )

Jack Mayernik National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

John Agan U.S. Department of Energy

Amir Roth U.S. Department of Energy

Frances Wood OnLocation

Remote attendees (Webex/phone)

Name Affiliation

Alan Zhong Citadel LLC

Brenna Walraven CSS Strategies

Alex Fisher DC Department of Energy & Environment

Anthony Grillo Hydro-Quebec

Eric Fox Itron

Mike Russo Itron

Oleg Moskatov Itron

Matt Cleaver Leidos

Pete Kobylarek Leidos

Paritosh Das National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

Elizabeth Titus Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships (NEEP)

Glen Salas SMS Results

Rachel Goldstein Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA)

David White Synapse Energy

Austin Brown UC Davis

Eric Mackres World Resources Institute

Jennifer Layke World Resources Institute
WORKING GROUP PRESENTATION FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSES ONLY.

DO NOT QUOTE OR CITE AS RESULTS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

EIA onsite attendees

Chip Berry

Angelina LaRose

Greg Lawson

Bill McNary

Ian Mead

Joelle Michaels

Jennifer Palguta

Manussawee Sukunta

Terry Yen

Team Members

Erin Boedecker

Meera Fickling

Behjat Hojjati

Kevin Jarzomski

Courtney Sourmehi (contractor)

Bailey Weinstein (intern)

EIA remote attendees (Webex/phone)

David Daniels

Tyler Hodge

Eileen O’Brien

Kelly Perl