Household Energy Conservation: A Review of the Federal Residential Conservation Service.

Most electric and gas utilities provide free or low-cost energy audits to their residential customers, usually as pan of the federal Residential Conservation Service (RCS). RCS programs in the few states where competent evaluations were done show incremental energy savings for participants of approximately 3-5 percent. Assessing the economic worth of RCS programs is particularly difficult (and very site-specific) because of factors such as future fuel prices, differences between marginal and average fuel prices, discount rates, and differences in how programs are implemented. The meager evidence on RCS program cost-effectiveness suggests that the economic benefits are generally small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]