A Midstream Cogged V-Belt Pilot Program: Concept and Early Challenges

Cogged v-belts (also known as notched v-belts) are about three percent more efficient at power transmission than smooth v-belts and are commonly recommended to replace smooth vbelts in industrial and commercial energy audits. While the energy-efficiency properties of cogged v-belts are widely accepted and documented, smooth v-belts still persist in practice. Moreover, few utility or government efficiency programs target v-belts for efficiency savings. As a result, many questions remain regarding the relative market penetration of cogged versus smooth v-belts, the technical potential for market transformation, and effective efficiency program design strategies to encourage adoption of cogged v-belts. This paper describes the early challenges of developing a midstream cogged v-belt pilot program that addresses these questions. The concept of why a midstream program was selected will be discussed, followed by pilot program design, incentive design, early challenges, and best practices in pilot development. The cogged v-belt pilot program is a collaboration of several electric utilities, a regional energy efficiency organization, a national lab, and a state manufacturing trade association. Background The Commercial Midstream Incentive Project (CMIP) idea came from the confluence of two partnerships. Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne) and the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (MEEA) were looking to design and pilot a midstream commercial program in the Midwest focused on measures not commonly associated with midstream program design. As energy efficient lighting is a common measure in upstream and midstream program design, the team sought other commonly recommended commercial and industrial measures. At the same time, Ohio utilities (AEP Ohio, Dayton Power & Light [DP&L]) and the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association (OMA) were partnering to increase energy efficiency program participation rates for manufacturers in Ohio. Also, AEP Ohio had engaged in conversations with Go Sustainable Energy (Go) regarding a v-belt-focused pilot program in early 2014. Finally, MEEA and Argonne were concurrently granted U.S. Department of Energy (US DOE) funding to study this particular incentive concept. Thus, the CMIP was formed as a partnership between all these organizations with the goal of piloting a midstream incentive concept in Ohio aimed at business-to-business distributors and suppliers. While the primary aim of the CMIP was to create and execute a midstream incentive pilot that yielded demonstrable energy savings, a secondary goal was to use the pilot