What's New: Cost Effectiveness Explorer

This month, we're taking you on a visual tour of the most recent updates and new capabilities available in the always-free online Cost Effectiveness Explorer.

New Capabilities for Benchmarking and Building Performance Standards

The development team has deployed new capabilities for exploring existing building data for targeting benchmarking and Building Performance Standards. These include  options to visualize a jurisdiction's building stock in new ways (see Images 1 and 2 below) and simulate a covered building scope more precisely.

Image 1. Users can now customize their data view by changing the x and y axis values (top left). They can also easily exclude buildings over 50,000 ft² (the statewide threshold for benchmarking) to zero in on building sizes that complement (rather than overlap with) the statewide benchmarking policy (control panel on right).

Image 2. Tables below the interactive tools offer more detailed data about specific building types. Users can share different outcomes with colleagues or Council members via screenshot, or by clicking the Download button at the top right of the page and selecting Existing Buildings PDF.

New Policy Design Workspace

The new Policy Design area consolidates and simplifies the opportunity for experimentation, with a single location for saved policies, multiple tabs to easily compare different policy scenarios, and preloaded options for a swifter start (see Images 3 and 4).

Image 3. The new Policy Design section offers a consolidated, single workspace for users to explore policy options. Users can view their saved policies, explore different pre-loaded policy options or compare multiple policies side-by-side via multiple tabs.

Image 4. In this example, the user has created two different options for policy scenarios to evaluate measures for single family residences, a FlexPath option and a prescriptive option. They can easily jump between the two tabs at the top to compare different aspects.

Utility Rate Information Available for Study Results

Users can also now easily identify the source behind the rates that were in the study results they are viewing (See Image 5.)

Image 5. Results are generally calculated from electricity and gas rates for the nearest California investor owned utility (IOU). In some locations, rates from other utilities (i.e. LADWP, SMUD, CPAU) were used if they were supported by a study.

The Explorer development team works regularly on incorporating new capabilities and data into the tool. To keep up with the latest updates, visit the Cost Effectiveness Explorer homepage and scroll down to the What's New section.

User assistance is available via a free personal walkthrough or technical support through the messaging bubble in the lower right corner of the homepage.