Experience you can trust Refrigerator and Appliance Recycling Program Evaluation CALMAC/MAESTRO Meeting San Francisco, CA July 26, 2006 Tami Rasmussen

2 Acknowledgements  Study funded through the California public goods charge for energy efficiency  Managed for the CPUC by SCE  Review and input from the California IOUs – PG&E – SCE – SDG&E

3 Study Objectives  Verification - To verify – Participation – Hard-to-reach rates – Savings estimates  Market Potential – To estimate the program market potential to support the development of future program year goals  Appliance Degradation – To determine the extent to which unit energy consumption (UEC) of refrigerators increases as the unit ages

4 Verification - activities and compliance  Overall - verified reported activities and compliance with program rules  Discrepancies due to – Changing definition of program year (from pick-up date to request date) – Some units less than 14 cubic feet included in program (some were picked up, others were database errors) – More than two units picked up per location.  Inconsistent information across utilities and program implementers with which to match customers. Results reasonable, but not precise.

5 Verification - Savings  One utility accidentally used the wrong deemed savings in its report to the Commission.

6 Market Potential  Combined data from multiple sources to estimate market potential for recycled refrigerators and freezers.  Sources included: – 2002 Statewide RASS survey for penetration of units and discard rates – 2002 Discarder Survey for discarders in SCE territory, to estimate percent of discarded units that are working – The 2002 RARP evaluation for percent of working discards transferred (versus destroyed (landfill or recycled)) – 2002 RARP participant data to adjust for size and age of participant units

7 Estimated Market Potential

8 Degradation Analysis - purpose and approach  Determine extent to which unit energy consumption (UEC) increases as unit ages  Approach – Compared manufacturers reported UEC (when new) to DOE test results (used or old) units available – Tested analytical models to express increased UEC as a function of age and other characteristics

9  Manufacturer data  Limited in time  Varies over the years  Interpolated among models  Uncertainty regarding age of metered units  Used minimum (most recent) and maximum (earliest) production dates  Weak correlation between production date and recycler estimate of unit age  Imprecision matching model numbers  Found manufacturer’s UEC for 136 of 240 units Degradation Analysis - Limitation of results

10 Degradation Analysis - Results 1 Metered Data as a Proportion of New UEC Percentage of Units Proportion of New UEC

11  Regression Analysis – Discernable relationship between age and change in UEC – R 2 of 0.60 indicates not all variation in data are explained – Best model:  Shows unit consumption increases with age  Indicates UEC increases as a function of other characteristics such as: –Refrigerator or freezer –Size (in cubic feet) –Configuration (side-by-side, top freezer, etc.)  Sample too small to be definitive Degradation Analysis - Results 2

12 Full report available at _EM&V_RARP_Study.pdf