North American Energy Audit Program Best Practices: Lessons, Challenges, and Recommendations

This report presents the results of a survey conducted in late 2009 of 15 North American energy audit program coordinators and energy audit experts. It also references three recently published program-specific evaluation reports. Survey respondents represent programs that have collectively provided over 18,000 energy audits of all description. This investigation studies programs that offer energy audits as a means for advancing energy efficiency policy goals. An energy audit is a profile of energy consumption, use, and waste in a building or industrial production process. Energy audits are provided by many utilities and government agencies not only as a service to customers, but as a way to facilitate public policies for waste reduction and pollution prevention. Survey respondents provided valuable lessons learned in the design, promotion, conduct, and evaluation of energy audit programs. This report summarizes those findings with additional comments and analysis by the author.