Climative partnered with EfficiencyOne and the Nova Scotia Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing on a remote home energy assessments pilot to compare a digital approach to traditional on-site EnerGuide assessments (completed 2022). The results paint a compelling case for using a digital approach to home energy assessments to engage homeowners, drive impactful retrofit actions, and quickly collect better data on the entire building stock. Read EfficiencyOne’s whitepaper to dig into the details. If you would like to discuss the results, we invite you to connect with a member of the Climative team.
In this article, we’ll discuss seven key takeaways from the Pilot and what this means for future delivery of deep energy retrofit programs.
Click rate for first-touch emails that contain a home energy pre-assessment, compared to emails that do not.
From emails promoting a remote (video) assessment compared to promoting an on-site assessment.
Virtual and remote assessments are accurate, matching on-site retrofit recommendations by 93% in some categories.
Homeowner satisfaction with the remote assessment experience was high – 9.5/10 on average.
Before we dig into the results, let’s define some key terms.
Virtual assessment (no-touch mass-market energy assessment): an AI-assisted report and retrofit recommendations calculated using data from trusted public data sources (tax assessment, weather data, and service area energy costs).
Remote assessment (video home energy assessment): an energy assessment performed via phone or web conference that connects a homeowner with a professional energy advisor. Includes retrofit recommendations and coaching.
On-site Assessment (Traditional EnerGuide home energy assessment): a professional energy advisor (EA) visits a home and collects 200 data points to calculate a home’s energy performance and make retrofit recommendations.
Digital home energy assessment approach: a term to describe a holistic approach that enables all types of energy assessments through a web-based portal. Suggested reading on this topic: Scaling Net-Zero Retrofits Whitepaper.
Let’s dig into the results of the Pilot.
Compared to on-site EnerGuide audits, virtual assessments of home energy use were 77% accurate on average, and video assessments were 84% accurate. Retrofit recommendations between video and on-site assessments were similar (ranging from 77% – 93%). The Pilot found that the remote nature of the video assessment didn’t materially impact the energy advisor’s ability to make retrofit recommendations. With proper training, achieving consistent alignment between remote and on-site recommendations would be very easy.
Recommendations for future programs:
When only 1-3% of the housing stock is assessed annually, we need to find new ways to engage the large majority of homeowners. The Pilot measured citizen engagement by comparing first-touch email click rates and program enrolment rates with three approaches.
On-Site Email Approach: email inviting homeowners to conduct an on-site EnerGuide assessment.
Virtual Email Approach: email inviting homeowners to view the results of a no-touch mass-market energy assessment (virtual), with a call-to-action to enroll in an on-site EnerGuide assessment.
Video Email Approach: email inviting homeowners to conduct a remote energy assessment.
The results indicate the highest email click rate was for the Virtual Email Approach, which includes a pre-assessment of the home and a call to action to conduct an on-site audit. The email click rate was 20%, which is 4x higher than the traditional approach that promotes an on-site audit with no pre-assessment. Another interesting takeaway: emails promoting a remote assessment yielded an enrollment rate of 2.6%, nearly 9x that of the traditional email approach.
Recommendations for future programs:
Customer satisfaction from the video application experience was rated at 9.5/10. Homeowners cited convenience as a leading factor in their satisfaction; the calls were short and didn’t require much time away from work. Homeowners also reported the virtual home energy assessment was easy to understand, even as a stand-alone report, before they engaged with an energy advisor.
Recommendations for future programs:
EfficiencyOne reports the average time to complete an EnerGuide assessment (including assessment, modeling, administration, and travel time) is about 7 hours. Compare that to a remote energy assessment estimated at about 2 hours.
Recommendations for future programs:
The average time to complete an on-site EnerGuide assessment is about 7 hours compared to a remote energy assessment estimated at about 2 hours.
Findings from page 18, "Remote Energy Assessments for Residential Homes", 2023
Despite the shorter assessment time, remote video energy assessments provide homeowners with more quality coaching time from energy advisors. In the Pilot, energy advisors reported more “face time” with homeowners than an on-site assessment, as the homeowner must be engaged during a video call. They actively participate in the assessment, providing more opportunities for the EA to build rapport and pass on personalized recommendations. The remote assessment call is also recorded and provided to homeowners as a resource. Although the impact of this resource was not measured during this Pilot, presumably, this provides another tangible benefit to homeowners.
Recommendations for future programs:
Following the Pilot, energy advisors generally had positive feedback regarding virtual home energy assessments. Some of the positive points include:
Recommendations for future programs:
The Pilot calculated that transportation for each EnerGuide assessment generates an average of 2.9 Kg of CO2 emissions per assessment, or 45 tons of emissions, to complete 15,720 assessments in Nova Scotia in 2022. When only half of the first assessments result in completed home efficiency upgrades, roughly 29 tons of GHGs were emitted without any measurable emissions reduction.
Recommendations for future programs:
The results of the Pilot on remote energy assessments for residential homes paint a compelling picture of how a digital approach to home energy assessments can help scale deep energy retrofits. The convenience of these digital tools makes better use of resources and is more convenient without sacrificing accuracy or the satisfaction of EAs or customers. Read the full paper to dig into the results.
Talk to Climative today to learn how to bring remote home energy assessments to your community with our platform, Climative Advisor. Give energy advisors superpowers and make energy efficiency coaching more accessible for homeowners.
Winston has 25 years experience as a leader in the telecommunications and utility industries. His in-depth knowledge of energy analysis and large-scale web-based platform deployments informs Climative's strategy in his role as CEO.
Climative provides a collaborative AI-assisted data platform for organizations to enable personalized advice and offers to building owners, taking the guesswork out of building upgrades and transforming the low carbon economy.