Wood heating and residential weatherization in the Hood River Conservation Project : a case study

A component of the U. S. Department of Energy, the Bonneville Power Administration Is a Federally-owned, ratepayer-funded electric utility serving the Pacific Northwest. Sponsored by Bonneville, the Hood River Conservation Project (HRCP) was a $20 million, three-year residential retrofit demonstration project. The HRCP was intended to define the maximum limits of a utility-operated residential retrofit program. The HRCP provided a unique opportunity to examine the effects of residential weatherization on wood burning.

Data from the HRCP are used to develop a wooduser profile. Multiple regression methods are used to explain preretrofit and post retrofit electricity and woodfuel consumption patterns. Air pollution due to residential wood combustion (RWC) is also discussed.

The wooduser profile indicates that electricity-only households and woodusers are different along the dimensions of demographics, housing and appliance ownership characteristics, and conservation attributes. Woodusers tend to be more upscale.

Analyses also indicate that the HRCP effectuated a real reduction in wood burning. At the same time, woodusers took back part of the expected electricity savings in the form of wood energy savings. Before the HRCP, woodusers were motivated to bum wood according to economic and lifestyle concerns. Thus, programs intended to reduce wood burning over the long-term would need to offer substantial incentives to replace the lifestyle dimension of wood burning.