Community Energy Opportunity Finder : About the CEOF

	Why Use the CEOF?

	Who Should Use the CEOF?

	The Scope of the Energy Finder

	Getting Started

	About Rocky Mountain Institute

	Project Sponsors

	Renewable Energy Information

	Energy Efficiency Information

	Carbon Dioxide Reductions Information

About the Community Energy Opportunity Finder
Developed by energy experts at Rocky Mountain Institute (www.rmi.org), the Community Energy Opportunity Finder (CEOF) mimics the preliminary analysis of an expert consultant in order to help your community realize the benefits of wise energy use.

The Energy Finder enables communities to:

Determine how much energy they can save through improvements in energy efficiency;
See how community members and city programs can reduce utility bills in the residential, commercial, and governmental sectors, thereby freeing up money for community respending;
Increase local jobs in energy efficiency and renewable energy resources;
Enhance local, regional, and national energy security by reducing demand on non-renewable energy supplies;
Help preserve the environment, both on a regional and global basis and
Support residents' participation in community affairs.

Steps to using the Energy Finder

Create a new account.
Create a scenario for your community.
Follow the instructions in the data entry pages to collect current and projected data on your community's energy use and physical characteristics.
Review your community's results.
Browse through the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy pages to learn how to start and fund your own energy projects, review case studies of successful community energy programs and gather information on some of the latest energy efficient and renewable energy technologies.

Create a New Account

Capabilities and Limitations
The Energy Finder is designed to perform an initial evaluation of the opportunities for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects in your community. There are many calculations and assumptions built into the Energy Finder, based on published literature and substantial experience from dozens of energy experts.

The strength of the Energy Finder is that it helps you collect a small core of essential data on your community's energy use, and then generates a reasonable range of your community's potential energy savings, dollar savings, emissions reductions, and job creation. In a relatively short amount of time, then, you'll be able to see how your community can benefit from energy efficiency projects, and that not doing those projects is tantamount to throwing cash out the window.

This strength is also a limitation; much of the data that drive the Energy Finder's calculations are typical for your climate region or building type, and your community may vary somewhat from the typical case. The data generated by the Energy Finder are intended to give you an overall sense of your community's energy opportunities, but should not serve in place of a detailed audit of each area or building where energy is used.

Keep in mind that the results you'll get from the Energy Finder are comparable to what an energy expert might come up with after an initial evaluation. More detailed energy audits of each energy end use (how energy is used by a consumer, e.g. heating a building or lighting streets) may be appropriate before you embark on a project, especially if the project requires a significant amount of capital and you need to have a good idea of the payback (the amount of time before the project's energy savings pay for itself).