Heat Loss Comparison Group: received a personalized HEAT Map of their home, and a HEAT Rating comparing their home to their neighbours' and the city average on their utility bills.
Homeowners shown MyHEAT imagery achieved significantly higher energy savings, demonstrating the powerful impact of Energy Made Visible™.
The Challenge
The City of Medicine Hat approached MyHEAT to explore opportunities to capture more energy savings. Nicknamed 'The Gas City', Medicine Hat is located in a politically conservative region with abundant natural gas resources — factors which can typically prevent significant progress on topics like energy efficiency.
The goal was to motivate action through behavioural change and educational channels to drive uptake in weatherization programs and home retrofits, reducing gas consumption and increasing energy savings.
The Approach
The municipally-owned gas and electric utility conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to measure consumption and program uplift amongst homeowners in two groups. The first group, Heat Loss Comparison Group, received MyHEAT's visual heat loss details, and the second group received standard Home Energy Reports (HER) messaging. We then compared the two groups to a control group that received no treatment-specific messaging.
Each group consisted of approximately 4,600 homes and they were balanced based on consumption, building size, building value, and HEAT Rating. Treatment groups received the following personalized messaging on utility bills during 2018:
Home Energy Report (HER) Group: received a graphical comparison of energy usage to similar sized-homes on their utility bills.
Control Group: received no treatment-specific messaging on utility bills.
The Heat Loss Comparison Group was shown the following:
An example of a HEAT Map showing the thermal image of a home's rooftop. Red shows areas where more heat loss may be occurring.
An example of a HEAT Rating where a home's heat loss is compared to others on a scale from 1-10. The lower the score, the less heat loss may be occurring.
The Results
Energy Savings
Academic teams from the University of Ottawa and Carleton University analyzed the findings. When focusing on the energy savings for homes with higher consumption, the pilot found an 8.1% reduction in natural gas consumption per $100 of estimated utility bill savings amongst the homes shown MyHEAT imagery. This is compared to a 1.3% reduction for homes shown the traditional Home Energy Report.
8.1% reduction for Heat Loss Comparison Group
1.3% reduction for HER Group
The academic teams discovered that overall during the pilot, customers in the Heat Loss Comparison Group (MyHEAT imagery) saved 2X more energy than customers in the HER Group. Homes in both groups were shown their potential cost savings, and customers with higher money-saving potential achieved larger energy savings. These results suggest that targeting homes with the largest saving potential could achieve even higher energy savings (this pilot considered all homes, regardless of savings potential).
Program Uplift
Customers in the Heat Loss Comparison Group were more likely to participate in offered incentive programs when compared to the Control Group.
28% more applications for weatherization and building envelope-specific programs (insulation, windows, etc.)