BASED ON NATURAL GAS ONLY

The remaining 39 cities are presented in Table 2-2, ranked from highest to lowest consumption. Considering only the first 29 cities in the table whose ECI is greater than 25, this targeting procedure includes more than 11 million owner-occupied homes, or 28 percent of the nation's total.

Summary

Utilizing data supplied by the American Gas Association, an Energy Consumption Index (ECI) was developed. The ECI serves as a means of identifying the efficiency of states or metropolitan areas in the consumption of energy for residential heating purposes. Since the ECI normalizes all sections of the country to a heating season of 100 degree days, direct intercity or interstate comparison is possible.

Evaluating the nation at the state level identified 23 states that would likely have maximum benefit from implementing Project Conserve. The states contain more than 50 percent of the nation's owner-occupied housing unit inventory.

Dropping down to the more manageable level of a Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area, it was possible to rank 39 of the 50 largest metropolitan areas. If Project Conserve were implemented in only those SMSA's with an ECI greater than 25, more than 11 million, or over 28 percent, of the nation's owner-occupied housing units would be included.

1

The Energy Consumption Index is the number of therms used for heating he average household for 100 degree days.

merican Gas Association.

Data are supplied by the

DELIVERY ALTERNATIVES

There are a variety of alternatives available for the delivery of Project Conserve to homeowners. Each alternative represents only a slight reorientation of the other alternatives with respect to the assignment of responsibility for administering the program.

Regardless of the specific alternative chosen, three stages of the delivery process must be considered:

(1)

(2)

(3)

Pre-implementation

The pre-implementation phase includes such
activities as briefing the delivery organiza-
tion on the concept of Project Conserve,
describing the technical requirements for its
operation and defining the staff and material
resources required for its operation.

Implementation

After the decision to proceed and after the
identification of the necessary resources,
the implementation phase begins. Such functions
must be performed as the printing of question-
naires and related materials, the initiation of
a publicity campaign, the scheduling of

resource availability, the installation/training
for computer program operation and the
distribution of materials to homeowners.

Operation

Following the distribution of questionnaires
to homeowners, the activity becomes one
of operating the program. For a given
questionnaire, the sequence is to receive and
edit it, transcribe the data to punched cards,
process the data, review and reprocess rejected
data and mail results to participants. During
the operation phase it is necessary to continue
the publicity campaign to encourage homeowner
participation. It may also be desirable to
conduct a follow-up campaign to encourage
participation.

The following discussion of the delivery alternatives is

divided into sections identified by the organization administering the Project. Within each section is a description of how delivery