Computer simulation/end-use metering or "can we count on energy savings estimates in designing demand-side programs"?

In 1937, Congress created the Bonneville Power Administration (Bonneville) to serve as transmission and distribution agent for electricity generated by the Bonneville Dam. Today, Bonneville, as a part of the United States Department of Energy, also distributes hydroelectricity from twenty-nine other federal dams in the Pacific Northwest to its "wholesale customers", the majority publicly-owned utilities. Bonneville's full service area covers approximately 300,000 square miles in the states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana west of the Continental Divide. Small adjacent sections of California, Montana, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming also receive power from the Bonneville system. This service territory has a population of almost nine million. Sweeping federal legislation in 1980 expanded Bonneville's role in supplying electricity to the region. Under terms of the Pacific Northwest Electric Power Planning and Conservation Act (the Act), Bonneville is charged with long-term planning and development of the region's energy resources. The Act defines conservation as a power resource comparable to conventional capacity, and in fact ranks it the "resource of preference" when it is reliable and no more costly than thermal generation. It is estimated that commercial-sector conservation cannot be left to independent consumer action. Consequently, creating mechanisms which can deliver reliable, large-scale conservation has become the focus of the Commercial Section within the Office of Energy Resources.