P6-6. Impact Assessment Framework

Conclusions:

• Product description and market segmentation are very important for defining market potential.
  
• Market penetration estimates have a wide range of uncertainty, even with the benefit of a well-defined assessment methodology. The predicted outcomes using the market penetration models are highly sensitive to initial estimates of market share.

The product of this research project is a tool for evaluating commercialization potential. The assessment framework itself is probably not, in itself, likely to be commercialized, although other governmental and private sector organizations may benefit from the availability of the assessment framework.

Bidders on Commission RFPs and Commission contractors should use the assessment framework to help define the market potential for the their proposed or on-going research projects.

The value of this framework would be enhanced if extended to the residential and industrial sectors of the electricity market. Commission research is likely to lead to new products that will affect electricity demand for residential and industrial electricity customers (including agriculture), in addition to commercial buildings. Typically, these demands are just as significant as those posed by the commercial sector.

Automating all steps of the process and increasing the breadth of product characteristics to create a user-friendly tool for use by the Commission in evaluating proposals and the outcomes of completed research. This would enable Commission staff to perform impact assessments and scenario analyses of potential impacts of the entire Commission PIER buildings portfolio.

The impact assessment framework allows objective evaluation of buildings-related energy research to improve the potential for market implementation. It should lead to selection of research that either has a quicker influence on the market or a greater savings impact in the longer term.

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