Efficiency Programs' Non-Energy Benefits: How States Are Finally Making Progress in Reducing Bias in Cost-Effectiveness Tests

Utilities implement residential, commercial, and other energy efficiency programs with the goal of reducing energy use. However, they have long ignored the array of indirect, or non-energy, impacts deriving from these programs. These benefits accrue to three classes of beneficiaries: participants, the utility, and society as a whole. Though non-energy benefits have been a topic of conversation for 20 years, they are only now being incorporated into benefit-cost tests.