Questions & Answers

Should this software be hosted on a website?

We can have the software on our own website and maintain our own server.

On the surveys that the users take, energy efficient measures are listed. Are you planning to link to or host reading material about the measures so users have up-to-date information on them? If so, how will these be kept current?

We would like to host the reading materials so as to keep the customers on our site. We will keep the information current by updating it.

Our group's assumption is that all the schools would be sending you the main points of their curriculum. Is this accurate?

No, the main points of the curriculum will be on a separate website and standardized as much as possible. The curriculum website is not part of this project though.

it seems like income would be a significant factors in a household's utility usage; some families can afford to be less energy-conscious. Do you expect the users to be forthcoming with information about their income, if they also are providing you with their address (to access the utility company's data)?

You are correct, some users will not be forth coming about their income. Such information can be made optional, and even then can always be treated with a grain of salt, if we have reason to believe that most users have not provided correct income. Another way is to put income bracket ranges. Experiences have shown that users respond better to this.

As far as the checklist is concerned to insure students are following Energy Efficient Practices they learned at school. Are these assessments done in class or online? If online how do you want the Teachers suppose to be aware of this?

It should be done online. 1) The teacher can be prompted by email after a certain number of assessments have been posted (in which case the teacher decides after how many assessments he/she needs to be alerted), 2) or may be better, the teacher can be reminded after a certain time period, in which case the teacher chooses how frequently they want to be reminded and they are also told how many assessments are available. 3) On the other hand if we are worried about the teacher being bombarded by emails, he or she can always login to check for assessments. In this case the software allows the teacher to turn off the "send alert email" button and the teacher logins when they want. 4) all the three options are made available to the teacher.

For doing post questionnaires on is this suppose to be done once or on a continuous basis?

On continuous basis

Did you want the software to give energy tips to customers (if so where would you want them?

Yes, the software should give the energy tips to customers. We could find the energy saving tips from credible sources which are federal or state such as the Department of Energy, or Environmental Protection Agency.

How should utility data be input?

Most people will not have three years of data. However, should anybody have lots of data, there should be no reason to limit them. The user should be able to manually add as many years as they want. E.g., the software could prompt a question such as "Would you like to add another year?". If the answer is yes, a template would appear, allowing them to enter the year they have data for. The template will already have the 12 months and the user populates the data. We will not be able to capture all utility companies. We acknowledge that there is wide variation on how utility companies operate, state laws and experiences in the users as a result we will try to get a software which captures as many of the users as possible and for as many different situations. Some utility companies will allow access to their data electronically and others may or may not allow that.

Is seasonal adjustment really necessary, or even useful?

You are correct comparisons such as whether more savings where made in winter vs. summer can be made without adjusting for seasons. Seasonal adjustment will be an analytical tool to be used where we cannot find common denominators. I understand it may be difficult to do, but we would like to be able to adjust for it. Once we have adjusted for seasons, then we can make comparisons across different states.

How do we do inflation adjustments? (This is actually a premature question, since it deals with a small implementation detail.)

Several data sets and formulas are available for adjustment for inflation. Inflation calculators are one such example. You could Google to find the formulas which makes it easier for your group. If you still have problems, let me [Towainga Katsvairu] know.

Is it necessary to include gas usage?

Gas is widely used in the US. I am not sure if I understand you here about gas not having a universal usage in the US. We would like to compare energy efficient use in gas as well. The idea is to get a complete energy use picture.

Do you want two separate checklists that track "Energy Efficient Measures" and "Self Audit Practices"? Or would you like a combination of both? How often do you want the user to fill out said checklist(s)? What quantifies this tracking, that is, how are you rating the checklists? And when you want us to provide statistical analysis, do you want us to purely do it based off of ONLY the utility bills, or would you like for it to take into account the energy efficient measures and the self audit practices?

I think energy efficient measure could be separated from self audit practices. I guess the user could fill out the checklist once a month. May be the checklist could be rated by if the user can completely fill out the questionnaire. Is this the answer you mean. I think I may have missed the question here. The statistical analysis should take into account energy efficient measures and self audit.