Justification

Request for Approval under the “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Routine Customer Feedback” (OMB Control Number: 2010-0042)

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION: Survey of Higher Education Stakeholders' Solar Power Project Development Issues

PURPOSE:

The U.S. EPA’s Green Power Partnership (GPP) is a voluntary program that works with organizations nationwide to use green power as a mechanism to reduce the environmental impacts associated with conventional electricity use. The GPP provides market stakeholders a wide range of information, resources, tools and templates that support faster, more widespread adoption of green power use. Through an Interagency Agreement (IAA) with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office, the EPA’s Green Power Partnership is working to foster greater utilization of solar energy directly with the Higher Education sector. The IAA specifies that EPA engage with the Higher Education sector to better understand individual institution challenges in utilizing solar energy and to develop and disseminate information and resources.

Under this ICR request, EPA’s GPP seeks to solicit feedback from Higher Education stakeholders on the barriers and challenges that currently confront higher education institutions in utilizing solar energy. EPA plans to survey Higher Education stakeholders who are participating in a workshop at the 2016 Smart & Sustainable Campuses Conference. This EPA-hosted workshop will focus on different solar project development issues such as policy, project financing and economics, as well as RFP, contracts and administrative barriers. Results of the conference workshop survey will facilitate the product/service offerings offered by EPA’s GPP. The EPA GPP expects approximately 120 unique attendees to participate in the workshop. Among these attendees, EPA expects approximately 90 attendees (e.g., 75% of attendees) to participate in the survey. It is expected that many if not all of the attendees have, or may have, direct experience with the EPA Green Power Partnership.

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS:

Participants will be higher education staff and administrators from colleges and universities across the United States, including:

• 2- and 4-year institutions.

• Public and private institutions.

• Institutions facing varying policy, financial, and contractual challenges to solar project development.

• A mix of male and female participants with ages, ethnic and educational backgrounds reflective of staff and administration officials common to higher education institutions.

• The majority of respondents should be Sustainability Officers from Higher Education institutions.

• Respondents are expected to self-select to the workshop sessions based on their individual interest in developing on- and off-site solar projects for their institutions.

TYPE OF COLLECTION: (Check one)

[ ] Customer Comment Card/Complaint Form [X] Customer Satisfaction Survey

[ ] Usability Testing (e.g., Website or Software) [ ] Small Discussion Group

[ ] Focus Group [ ] Other: ______________________

CERTIFICATION:

I certify the following to be true:

1. The collection is voluntary.

2. The collection is low-burden for respondents and low-cost for the Federal Government.

3. The collection is non-controversial and does not raise issues of concern to other federal agencies.

4. The results are not intended to be disseminated to the public.

5. Information gathered will not be used for the purpose of substantially informing influential policy decisions.

6. The collection is targeted to the solicitation of opinions from respondents who have experience with the program or may have experience with the program in the future.

Name: James Critchfield, EPA Green Power Partnership

To assist review, please provide answers to the following question:

Personally Identifiable Information:

1. Is personally identifiable information (PII) collected? [ ] Yes [X ] No

2. If Yes, is the information that will be collected included in records that are subject to the Privacy Act of 1974? [ ] Yes [X] No

3. If Applicable, has a System or Records Notice been published? [ ] Yes [X] No

Gifts or Payments:

Is an incentive (e.g., money or reimbursement of expenses, token of appreciation) provided to participants? [ ] Yes [X] No

Participation will be voluntary. Participants will already have chosen to attend the Smart & Sustainable Campuses Conference and its related proceedings, and will have to expend minimal additional time and effort to participate in the indicated survey. Participants will self-select to attend the EPA-hosted solar workshop session where the proposed survey will be administered as part of a workshop session.

BURDEN HOURS

Category of Respondent	No. of Respondents	Participation Time	Burden
Conference workshop session on Policy/Financing/RFP/Contracts/Administrative Barriers	90	5 mins	7.5 hrs

FEDERAL COST: The estimated annual cost to the Federal government to execute the survey is $450. The survey shall be administered with applicable survey questions relative to each workshop topic segment (e.g., policy, financing, and RFP/contracts). EPA and contractor support will be used to solicit effective and efficient results during the survey collections.

If you are conducting a focus group, survey, or plan to employ statistical methods, please provide answers to the following questions:

The selection of your targeted respondents

1. Do you have a customer list or something similar that defines the universe of potential respondents and do you have a sampling plan for selecting from this universe? [ ] Yes [X] No

If the answer is yes, please provide a description of both below (or attach the sampling plan)? If the answer is no, please provide a description of how you plan to identify your potential group of respondents and how you will select them?

EPA has access to a pre-conference registration list for the conference. This list indicates the general type and affiliation of registrants planning to attend the conference. It is expected that the workshop attendees will be a subset of the pre-conference registration list, although registration for the workshop is not required. Therefore, EPA does not have exact knowledge of which conference attendees will attend the workshop session.

The Smart & Sustainable Campuses Conference attracts over three hundred college and university staff and administrators. EPA will be hosting a workshop at the conference that delves into several topic areas, which focus on various policy, financial, and contracting barriers to solar project deployment in higher education. Prior to the conference, EPA has promoted the workshop to conference attendees through various EPA Green Power Partnership (GPP) communications activities both related to and separate from the conference itself. During the conference, the GPP will also be afforded various opportunities to promote the workshop to conference attendees. It is expected that attendees of the conference will self-select to the workshop session based on their individual interest in developing solar projects at their institution.

At the conclusion of each of the workshops topic presentations, EPA will invite workshop participants to partake in a 15-minute survey focused on questions related to the policy, financial, and contracting barriers discussed during the workshop session.

Administration of the Instrument

1. How will you collect the information? (Check all that apply)

[ ] Web-based or other forms of Social Media

[ ] Telephone

[X] In-person

[ ] Mail

[ ] Other, Explain

2. Will interviewers or facilitators be used? [] Yes [ X] No

EPA staff will explain and request that attendees fill out the voluntary survey. The survey instrument is not designed to require formal interviewers, facilitators or moderators.

Please make sure that all instruments, instructions, and scripts are submitted with the request.

*Please see the associated survey instrument with this request.

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