The Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE) has launched the new Center for Equity and Energy Behavior to better serve members' current and future needs. This new Center builds on more than a decade of work at CEE into how human decision-making influences energy efficiency and demand response programs.
The Center’s goal is to support members as they develop and refine Energy Efficiency and Demand Response programs to ensure that ratepayers benefit more equitably. This includes increasing participation in and benefit from programs among underserved customer audiences and identifying and defining Non-Energy Impacts to more fully capture true participant and societal value.
“The Center is a natural outgrowth of member programs ongoing focus on customer behavior as well as achieving important equity objectives,” said Ed Wisniewski, Executive Director of CEE.
This Center will also have the opportunity to build off of existing CEE work on better engaging underserved and vulnerable energy users. For several years, CEE has been collaborating with the US Department of Energy and the UsersTCP of the International Energy Agency (IEA) on a global Hard to Reach (HTR) project to understand how to better engage underserved customers.
“Our work on the IEA project will allow us to hit the ground running,” said Kira Ashby, director of the Center and U.S. National Expert for the IEA UsersTCP HTR Task. “Program insights from Sweden, New Zealand, the U.K., Portugal, Italy, and the Netherlands, can help us identify which approaches may be ripe to pilot or adapt in the U.S. and Canada.”
The Center currently has 12 sponsors and is accepting new sponsorships for 2022 until June 1st. For more information about the Center for Equity and Energy Behavior, contact Kira Ashby.
