Who is participating in residential energy efficiency programs? Exploring demographic and other household characteristics of participants in utility customer-funded energy efficiency programs

In addition to benefiting all customers by reducing the total electric system cost, utility customer-funded energy efficiency programs provide direct benefits to the participants. Understanding the current demographic and household characteristics of participants will help assess the extent of inequities in program participation and figure out what characteristics need to be targeted to achieve equitable outcomes.

 

This report describes how 11 demographic and household characteristics including income, race and ethnicity, and education affect participation in residential utility customer-funded energy efficiency programs. It compiles previous work on this topic and adds new primary analysis of four datasets with different levels of detail from the Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS), two New England states, and a Midwestern state.