Glossary

The short forms and terms you meet on CEDARS pages, in filings and in downloads. Each entry has its own link, so you can send someone straight to it. A field's exact definition, unit and valid values are in the data dictionary.

Acronyms and abbreviations

ACC

Avoided Cost Calculator. The CPUC's model of what the electric and gas systems save, hour by hour and year by year, when energy use goes down. Benefits are priced with it. CEDARS names each one by its year, for example "2024 ACC".

API

Application programming interface. The way another system files, checks or reads data in CEDARS without the pages, using an API token from your account.

C&S

Codes and standards. Programs that support building codes and appliance standards. Their savings are reported with the portfolio but are often left out of goal and cost-effectiveness totals.

CCA

Community choice aggregator. A local public agency that buys electricity for the customers in its area. Some CCAs run energy-efficiency programs and file in CEDARS as program administrators.

CEDARS

California Energy Data and Reporting System. This site.

CET

Cost Effectiveness Tool. The calculation in the earlier CEDARS that priced filings. ReCET replaces it here.

CO2, NOx, PM10

Carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides and fine particulate matter: the emissions reported for a measure's savings.

CPUC

California Public Utilities Commission. It sets the rules for the programs, reviews the filings and publishes the data. Its Energy Division runs CEDARS.

CSV

Comma-separated values. A plain-text table file. CEDARS also reads the pipe-separated files the earlier CEDARS used.

DEER

Database for Energy Efficient Resources. The CPUC's database of savings, costs and useful lives for common measures, and the load shapes that go with them.

DI

Direct install. A delivery method where the program installs the measure for the customer.

EE

Energy efficiency.

EM&V

Evaluation, measurement and verification. Independent studies of what programs actually saved. Their workplans, drafts, comments and final reports are kept under Documents.

ESA

Energy Savings Assistance. The IOUs' no-cost program for income-qualified households. Older published totals include it; it is not part of cost-effectiveness results.

eTRM

California electronic Technical Reference Manual. The published record of every deemed measure: its savings, costs, useful life and impact profiles. Deemed claims are checked against it.

EUL

Effective useful life. How many years a measure keeps saving energy.

GHG

Greenhouse gas.

IOU

Investor-owned utility. PG&E, SCE, SoCalGas and SDG&E. They are program administrators and fund the statewide programs.

IR

Installation rate. The share of measures paid for that are actually installed and working.

kW, kWh, MW, MWh, GWh

Kilowatt and megawatt (demand: power at one moment); kilowatt-hour, megawatt-hour and gigawatt-hour (energy over time). 1 MWh is 1,000 kWh.

ME

Market effects. Savings outside the program that it causes by changing the market, added as a share of net savings.

MFA

Multi-factor authentication. The second factor (an authenticator app or a security key) every account uses to sign in.

NMEC

Normalized metered energy consumption. Savings measured from a site's meter data, adjusted for weather and other changes, instead of deemed values.

NTG, NTGR

Net-to-gross ratio. The share of gross savings caused by the program, leaving out customers who would have done it anyway.

PA

Program administrator. An organization that runs energy-efficiency programs with ratepayer funds and files them in CEDARS: an IOU, a REN or a CCA. Each has a code.

PAC

Program Administrator Cost test. Benefits against the costs the program administrator pays: program costs and incentives.

PCT

Participant Cost Test. The benefits and costs seen by the customer who takes part, such as bill savings and incentives against what they pay.

PDA, PSR

Public Documents Area and Project Status Report. The Energy Division's EM&V websites, whose documents and study records move into CEDARS' Documents.

PII

Personally identifiable information. Customer contacts and sites filed with claims. CEDARS keeps them apart from everything else, and reading them needs a data steward's approval.

PrgID

Program ID. A program's code, starting with its PA's code, for example PGE21001.

PV

Present value. Future amounts discounted to today's dollars at the PA's discount rate.

ReCET

The calculation engine CEDARS uses for cost-effectiveness runs: a rebuild of the CET that prices each hour on the ACC.

REN

Regional energy network. A group of local governments that runs energy-efficiency programs for its region and files in CEDARS as a program administrator.

RIM

Ratepayer Impact Measure. A test of the program's effect on rates paid by all customers, counting the utility's lost revenue as a cost.

RR

Realization rate. The share of estimated savings that evaluation confirms.

RUL

Remaining useful life. How many more years the equipment being replaced would have lasted. A measure with an RUL has a second baseline.

SCT

Societal Cost Test. Like the TRC, with society's values for avoided emissions and a societal discount rate. CEDARS shows it in two versions, SCB and SCH, on the ACC's base and high societal values.

SW

Statewide. Programs run for the whole state, led by one IOU and funded by all four. Their costs and results are shared among the IOUs by allocation factors. SW is also the code their filings use.

Therm, MMBtu, MMTherms

Units of natural gas. 1 therm is 100,000 Btu; 1 MMBtu is 10 therms; MMTherms is millions of therms.

TRC

Total Resource Cost test. The CPUC's main cost-effectiveness test: the avoided-cost benefits against the program's costs and the measures' added costs, whoever pays them. A ratio above 1 means benefits exceed costs.

TSB

Total system benefit. The lifecycle value, in dollars, of a portfolio's savings to the electric and gas systems, priced on the ACC. The CPUC sets the portfolio goals in TSB.

WCAG

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. CEDARS meets version 2.2 at Level AA. See keyboard and screen reader use.

Program administrator codes

The codes CEDARS uses for each program administrator, in filings, PrgIDs, filters and downloads. A PA that changes its name keeps its filings under the new code, and the filters show its former codes beside it.

Terms

Acting for

The organization you are working for at the moment, shown in the header. Everything you file or run is recorded under it.

Allocation factor

The share of a statewide program's costs and results counted for each funding IOU. The funding IOUs load and confirm them under Reference.

Avoided cost

What the electric or gas system no longer has to spend (energy, capacity, transmission, emissions and more) because energy use went down. Benefits in the cost tests are avoided costs.

Benefit-cost ratio

A cost test's benefits divided by its costs, both in present value. "No admin" ratios leave out program administration costs.

Budget filing

A PA's forecast of its programs for a program cycle: the measures it expects to install and what it expects to spend. Each confirmed version is kept.

Claim

A PA's report of the measures actually installed and the money spent, filed after each quarter and confirmed once more as the final claims for the year.

Climate zone

One of California's 16 building climate zones. A measure's savings shape and avoided costs depend on its zone.

Cost test

A way of weighing a program's benefits against its costs from one point of view: TRC, PAC, RIM, PCT or SCT. A cost-test set is the version of these definitions in force for a program year.

Custom measure

A measure whose savings are calculated for the project itself, not taken from a deemed value.

Data dictionary

Every field CEDARS holds, with its definition, unit, valid values and the years it is used.

Data steward

A CPUC role that approves access to personal information.

Deemed measure

A measure whose savings, costs and life are fixed in advance in eTRM or DEER, so every installation of it claims the same values per unit.

End use

What the energy is used for, such as lighting, cooling or water heating. It picks the savings shape when the measure names none.

First and second baseline

What savings are measured against. The first baseline is the equipment in place, for its remaining useful life; the second is what would have been installed after that, for the rest of the measure's life.

First-year and lifecycle savings

First-year savings are a measure's savings in its first year; lifecycle savings add them up over its useful life.

Fuel substitution

A measure that replaces one fuel with another, usually gas with electricity, so one fuel's use goes up as the other's goes down.

Fund shift

Moving budget between programs during the cycle, without a new budget filing.

Gross and net savings

Gross savings are all the savings of the installed measures; net savings are the part the program caused (gross times the NTG).

Impact profile (load shape)

How a measure's yearly savings spread over the 8,760 hours of a year. Pricing multiplies each hour's savings by that hour's avoided cost.

Measure, measure record

A piece of equipment or an action that saves energy, such as an LED fixture or a heat pump. A measure record is one row of a filing's Measure table: one measure, its quantity and its values.

Monthly report

A PA's spending and commitments so far in the year, compared with its operating budget. The 13th-month report closes the year against the final claims.

Operating budget

The standing budget filing plus the fund shifts in effect: what a PA is authorized to spend now.

Program

A PA's offering to customers, with its own PrgID, sector and budget. A program has versions; closed programs stay in the catalog.

Program cycle, program year

Budgets are filed for a four-year program cycle (for example 2028-2031); results are reported by program year.

ProgramCost table

The table of a filing that holds each program's costs that are not tied to one measure, such as administration and marketing.

Run

One cost-effectiveness calculation of a job on the ReCET engine, with a chosen ACC and engine release.

Sector

The kind of customer: residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural or public.

True-up

A correction to an earlier filing or claim, such as a budget true-up advice letter, or a claim record priced against its parent's impact profile.

Validation rule

A check every filing goes through. A reject stops the filing until it is fixed; a warning is shown but lets it through.

Value list

The allowed codes for a field. Retired codes are kept with an end date, so older filings stay valid.

Version

Each confirmed filing is kept as a version and never changed. A correction is a new version with a reason.