The purpose of verification in the context of this program is to ensure that the technologies installed in residential homes through the program are installed and operating properly, and have the potential to deliver energy and peak demand savings. Verification should also produce the information necessary to estimate the energy and peak demand savings delivered at each customer site. Evaluation of the aggregate energy and demand savings achieved by the program should be the responsibility of the independent evaluator hired by the utility.
Responsibility for verification of installation of technologies and program operation should be retained by the utility. The utility should verify that the third party hired to deliver the program to consumers has installed operating equipment at residential customer sites. Site inspections should be done on a random sample of at least 10% of homes participating in the program. The utility or its agents should be responsible for these verification inspections.
The hardware and software offered by the delivery contractor for this program should have the capability for periodic reporting of thermostat settings and consumer behavior, for payment settlement purposes. This information should also be made available to the program evaluator hired by the utility in order to estimate aggregate energy savings and peak demand reduction impacts of the pilot program.