DSM Achievements and Expenditures

Since 2010, E Source has collected demand-side management (DSM) annual reports from across Canada and the US to benchmark the performance of DSM portfolios. The DSM Achievements and Expenditures series allows utilities to quickly compare the performance of their portfolio to that of their peers’ portfolios. It also offers a broad set of portfolio metrics that paint a more holistic picture of DSM efforts. The summary report—with numerous tables, charts, and comparisons—is accompanied by a downloadable Excel spreadsheet containing the complete data set.

DSM Achievements and Expenditures displays fuel-specific results for more than 50 DSM portfolios, including data on:

Overall portfolio
Nonresidential programs
Residential programs
Low-income programs
Multifamily programs

With four years of surveys, there’s plenty of ways to slice the data and examine year-over-year trends. Metrics benchmarked at each portfolio level include:

Energy savings as a percentage of sales
Planned energy savings versus achieved
Per capita energy savings
DSM expenditures as a percentage of revenue
Cost of annual energy savings
Per capita expenditures
Budgets versus actual spending

DSM Achievements and Expenditures also provides critical information on each utility that enables an apples-to-apples comparison. Utility data include:

State of operation
Fuel type (gas-only, electric-only, or dual-fuel)
Ownership structure
Residential, commercial, and industrial customer counts and retail sales
Revenue
Demand peaking season

Methodology

DSM Achievements and Expenditures consists of data pulled directly from utility annual DSM reports. We use E Source DSM Insights—which serves as a repository for annual DSM reports, plans, evaluations, and other regulatory filings—to find the documentation. To focus on efficiency and conservation programs, we don’t include energy savings and expenditures attributed to renewable energy technologies, specifically customer-sited solar photovoltaic systems.