Evaluation of implemented Australian efficiency programs: results, techniques and insights

Australia has invested heavily in water efficiency in recent years, mainly due to severe drought, and has implemented some of the largest efficiency programs in the world. Despite this there is little public information on actual savings achieved or the cost effectiveness of programs implemented. This paper draws together the limited publicly available evaluations from Australia, focusing on the residential sector. It describes some of the large-scale residential programs implemented such as home retrofits, showerhead exchanges, washing machine rebates, toilet retrofits and rainwater tank rebates. It identifies key savings evaluation techniques used including participant-control and regression analysis, and summarizes water savings results from evaluation studies conducted. It also discusses key learnings from both the evaluation techniques employed and the programs implemented. The paper will be of significant interest to water service providers looking for evidence of actual savings achieved and/or wanting to understand how to evaluate their own programs.