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851 S.W. Sixth Avenue, Suite 1100
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Phone 503-222-5161
Fax 503-820-2370
rtf.nwcouncil.org
RTF Quarterly Newsletter – Q1 2015
April 10, 2015
enhance is research role in support of planning
and provisional measures.
2015 RTF Meeting Dates
All RTF meetings are public and are held at the
Council’s central office in Portland, Oregon.
The RTF uses a conference call and webinar at
each meeting to increase participation and
access to meetings. Call-in information for
monthly meetings and subcommittee meetings
can be found on the RTF website. The monthly
meetings for 2015 are:
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Additionally, the RTF rebid its QA/QC
contractor work. For 2015, the RTF has
selected DNV-GL to perform this role.
Rethinking the RTF Role in Research
Research Plans tied to Provisional and Planning
measures have been a challenging part of RTF
work. In the first quarter of 2015, the RTF
began laying out a new approach. This
approach introduces a new concept of a
“Research Strategy”. The Research Strategy is
a document that defines research objectives and
a potential path for moving Planning measures
towards Proven. A significant aspect of the
Research Strategy is that it is developed in
absence of a specific funder or sponsor.
April 14
May 12
June 16
July 21
August 18
September 22
October 20
November 10
December 8
Going forward, the RTF aims to reserve
detailed Research Plans to be documents that
detail the research defined by a sponsor (or
sponsors) to improve the reliability of RTF
measures. Research Plans would accompany
Provisional measures.
New RTF Contract Analyst and QA/QC for
2015-2016
For 2015, the RTF rebid its contract analyst
work, with budget to select up to 6 FTE of
analysts. This additional 1 FTE was intended as
more focused resource for research and
evaluation support. After a competitive RFP
process, the RTF selected Adam Hadley, Josh
Rushton, Ryan Firestone, Mohit SinghChhabra, and Christian Douglass to continue on
as contract analysts for 2015. Additionally, the
RTF selected My Ton as a new addition to the
team to focus on the R&E Subcommittee work.
This added resource will enable the RTF to
The RTF is still fine tuning this approach and
working through questions like:
 What is the difference between Planning
and Provisional, and how do we need to
update the Guidelines to reflect that
distinction?
 What is the RTF’s role in engaging funders
to develop detailed Research Plans?
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The RTF staff and analysts will be working
with the RTF PAC and the R&E subcommittee
to better define and enhance this process over
the coming months. Stay tuned.
Comprehensive meeting minutes and
presentation materials from all RTF meetings
can be found on the RTF webpage.
RTF Policy Advisory Committee
The PAC met in early February to further
discuss changes to the RTF PAC Charter and
recommend to the Council renewal of the
Charter. The RTF PAC also reviewed the
proposed RTF Bylaws changes and made a
recommendation to the Council for adoption.
Recent RTF Meetings
The RTF held meetings on January 21,
February 18, and March 17. Highlights from
those meetings include:
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Approved a new DHP for Electric Forced
Air UES measure. This is a new Planning
measure with an associated Research
Strategy.
Accepted the Research Strategy for the
Residential Commissioning, Controls, &
Sizing measure for both single family and
manufactured homes, updating the category
for both measures to Planning.
Approved the Scientific Irrigation Standard
Protocol (and related RTF Research Plan
and calculator), moving this measure from
Out of Compliance to Provisional and
Active.
Updated the savings to a number of
measures including the Residential Clothes
Washers-SF, Commercial Storage Electric
Resistance Water Heater, New Construction
ENERGY STAR Homes SF-Oregon 2012,
and Commercial Smart Plug Power Strips.
Deactivated the Residential Storage Electric
Resistance Water Heater UES measure
(effective April 16, 2015) as a result of the
upcoming water heater standard change that
essentially eliminates significant savings
from these units.
Adopted the proposed changes to the
Bylaws, and forward the RTF Charter and
Bylaws to the Council with
recommendation for approval.
Allocated RTF Staff resources towards
developing: A Residential Low E Storm
Windows UES measure, Residential Duct
Insulation UES mesure, Residential
Prescriptive Air Sealing UES measure,
Non-Residential Lighting Code Compliant
Standard Protocol, and A New Homes
Standard Protocol measure.
New Subcommittees formed
Clothes Washer & Dryer Subcommittee
The RTF is in the process of developing a new
Provisional UES measure for residential clothes
dryers. This technical subcommittee was
working to support the development of the
methodology for determining clothes dryer
savings, costs, and lifetimes. It will also
discussed how to address measure interaction
between clothes washers and dryers.
Manufactured Homes Calibration
The MH Calibration subcommittee was formed
to provide feedback and guidance to staff on
SEEM calibration tasks for manufactured
homes (MH). SEEM is a residential heating
and cooling energy use model the RTF uses for
analysis of many of its residential efficiency
measures. Calibration of the model is a
requirement of the RTF Guidelines.
New Homes Standard Protocol Subcommittee
After RTF approved to allocate staff resources
to the development of New Homes Standard
Protocol, the RTF formed this subcommittee to
support its development. The first meeting of
this subcommittee took place on March 18.
Subcommittee Wrap-Up
The RTF relies on its subcommittees to review
and provide oversight or guidance on projects,
provide feedback to the RTF on specific issues,
and help develop and update sector-specific
measure savings assumptions.
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Commercial Rooftop Unit Workgroup (RTUG)
The RTUG meet on February 13 to review and
discuss the savings analysis from BPA, SBW,
and NorthWrite on an advanced RTU control
retrofit. The subcommittee expressed interest in
pursuing this further as Standard Protocol. This
work is expected to take place in the latter half
of 2015.
RTF Webpage
Council staff continues to implement
improvements to the webpage. New and
revised measure workbooks, protocols,
decisions, and supporting materials are posted
frequently. Please send any comments and
suggestions on the RTF webpage to Jennifer or
Aggar
Implementers Group
The Implementers group meets monthly after
the RTF meeting to discuss the outcome of the
RTF meeting. Additionally, the Implementers
Group provides feedback to inform the
development of measures. This quarter, the
Implementers Group provided input on the
different clothes washer measure identifiers.
Comments? Suggestions? Questions?
We welcome your feedback as we strive to
improve our outreach and responsiveness.
Regards from your RTF staff,
Charlie, Jennifer, Aggar, Adam, Christian,
Josh, Mohit, Ryan and My
Operations Subcommittee
The RTF Operations subcommittee meets
monthly to review and discuss the RTF meeting
agendas, decisions, and contracts. In addition to
the regular duties, this quarter the
subcommittee participated in the discussion of
RTF Bylaws.
Small/Rural Subcommittee
The Small/Rural Subcommittee meets
quarterly. This quarter the subcommittee met in
early February. At that meeting, the
subcommittee reviewed several S/R Checklists
and discussed the workplan for 2015. Through
that discussion, the subcommittee identified a
need to discuss implementation barriers to
running programs. This will be a continued
topic at future subcommittee calls.
Research & Evaluation Subcommittee
The R&E subcommittee met in February and
March to review the draft research plans for
DHP with FAF in single family and
manufactured homes and Ducted HP
Commissioning Controls and Sizing. Given the
changes to the RTF research approach, these
draft research plans were used to inform the
Research Strategies adopted by the RTF and
will provide the basis for future funders
discussions as they look to flesh out a detailed
Research Plan for each measure.
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