Evaluation of the U.S. department of energy’s weatherization assistance program: Impact results

This paper presents the results of two impact evaluations of the U.S. Department of Energy's Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP). This comprehensive weatherization program provides grants to U.S. states, which then provide grants to local weatherization agencies to weatherize income-eligible low-income homes. The program treats single family and mobile homes, and multifamily buildings in all climate zones. The impact evaluations focused on Program Years (PYs) 2008 and 2010. The latter fell during the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) period. The program supported the weatherization of 98,000 units in PY 2008 and 332,000 units in PY 2010. It is estimated that the program saved 2.3 trillion Btus in PY 2008 and 7.6 trillion Btus in PY 2010. These savings achieve $420 million in energy cost savings with respect to PY 2008 and $1.2 billion in savings in PY 2010. Environmental and health and household related benefits add $267 million and $1.2 billion and $694 million and $3.8 billion of co-benefits to the energy cost savings benefits. The average total benefit per unit weatherized in PY 2008 is $22,000 versus an average total cost of $4,700. These results for PY 2010 are $20,000 and $6,800, respectively.