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Celebrating Three Decades of Market Transformation Since 1996, the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance has worked alongside utilities and regional partners to advance energy efficiency through research, collaboration and market-based solutions. Explore the timeline below to discover the people, programs and pivotal moments that have helped shape the alliance’s history and the Northwest’s energy future. Explore…

Letter to the Region 2025 marked a year of meaningful firsts for the Northwest. As the alliance launched the first year of its 2025 – 2029 business cycle, NEEA began translating regional priorities into action, advancing solutions designed to meet the evolving needs of electric and natural gas customers across our four-state region. Energy efficiency…

Following the U.S. Department of Energy’s (U.S. DOE’s) release of a new energy efficiency standard for commercial and industrial pumps, the alliance leveraged its data expertise, mid and upstream market relationships, and regionwide scale to help support the Northwest in meeting the new standard.

For NEEA, data has always been a vital part of Market Transformation. And as the alliance moves deeper into Cycle 7, the role of data is evolving. Having better data allows NEEA to ask sharper questions, identify barriers earlier, and pinpoint the most effective points of intervention.

Advancing energy efficiency across the Northwest means more than innovative technologies and strong partnerships, it requires trusted market insights and evaluation to determine if NEEA’s efforts are driving real progress. That’s where NEEA’s team of Market Research and Evaluation (MRE) scientists play a critical role.

Commercial buildings are entering a new phase of energy efficiency defined by a shift toward resilient, scalable solutions. Rather than seeking new systems, cost-conscious decision makers today are focused on technologies that are easier to adopt, easier to install, and easier to integrate into existing buildings.

The Q2 2026 Emerging Technology Newsletter showcases the product management team’s impactful work supporting the emerging technology program at NEEA, including: Future quarterly newsletters will include status updates and links to published reports on the activities above as they become available. NEEA staff scan for emerging technologies for all sectors and end uses. Please let…

The Regional Emerging Technology Advisory Committee (RETAC) will hold their second quarterly meeting of 2026 on June 17th. Topics will include a review of the research around heat pumps conducted by the Electric Power Research Institute, as well as an overview of current projects by the Emerging Technologies Collaborative (ETC), which is part of the…

The Q2 committee meeting will focus on key regional heat pump initiatives, including a review of draft resources from the NW Heat Pump Symposium, NEEA’s proposed draft of the Advanced Heat Pump specification highlighted at Efficiency Exchange, and discussion on the RTF’s “Minimizing Supplemental Heat” measure development, facilitated by Sr. Program Manager Suzi Asmus. The…

Variable speed heat pumps (VSHP) and cold climate air source heat pumps (ccASHP) have gained increased attention for their potential to support utility end-use load flexibility programs while maintaining customer comfort. VSHPs can be programmed to respond to grid signals, adjusting unit energy consumption by varying the compressor and fan speeds. Very limited data are available to quantify VSHP…