The Scope of the Weatherization Assistance Program: Profile of the Population in Need

Abstract

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is conducting a national evaluation of its Weatherization Assistance Program, an energy efficiency program that provides financial assistance to qualifying low-income households for the ''weatherization'' of their housing units. The evaluation, being conducted for the Department by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), is comprised of five studies. One of the five is a two-part analysis of the scope of the Weatherization Assistance Program and other resources devoted to low-income energy efficiency, including the number of dwellings weatherized to date and the population remaining to be served. This study is referred to here as the ''Scope'' study. This report presents the results of the second part of the ''Scope'' study, which investigates the characteristics of the population eligible for and in need of the DOE Weatherization Assistance Program--The Profile of the Population in Need. The ''Profile'' study is an attempt to use the Energy Information Administration's Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) for 1990 to define the weatherization-related characteristics of the low-income population. The RECS, a national survey with a sample size of 5,095 households, is the most reliable source for information regarding residential energy-use and housing characteristics because data is collected from fuel vendors on actual household energy bills and consumption for a large and representative sample of households.