The ENERGY STAR Retail Products Platform

Appliances, consumer electronics, and other plug loads in the home contribute an estimated 25 percent of residential electricity use. Energy efficiency programs run by utilities and other organizations have traditionally offered consumer rebates to incentivize the purchase of more energy efficient ENERGY STAR-certified options. With the success of these programs, the per-unit energy savings opportunity has decreased, and utilities struggle to justify rebate amounts sufficient to motivate consumers and attract retailer interest.

The ENERGY STAR Retail Products Platform (ESRPP) is a collaborative midstream initiative of ENERGY STAR, energy efficiency program sponsors, retailer partners, and other key stakeholders, facilitated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A nationwide collaboration, the ESRPP allows participants to leverage each other’s resources and shared objectives, to avoid duplication of effort and redundancy across neighboring service territories, and to streamline operations. The focus is asking retailers to take a more comprehensive view of energy-efficient products and providing them with incentives from utilities and other energy efficiency program sponsors to change their inventories to sell increasing numbers of ENERGY STAR certified products. In the long term, the ESRPP is expected to offer a gateway for energy efficiency programs to capture energy savings in the growing “miscellaneous/plug load” product categories at a significantly lower cost than current programs incur.

Who Is Participating

Eighteen program sponsors are participating and coordinating efforts in program year 2024, encompassing more than 30% of the US market. ENERGY STAR certified models in nine product categories are being promoted by program sponsor-labeled signage in more than 1,700 stores. Going forward, the goal for large-scale market participation – to serve more than 35% of the US population – is a key milestone in the ESRPP vision to transform the market for energy efficient consumer products.

Evaluation, Measurement and Verification for ESRPP

What Challenge Is ESRPP Facing?

ESRPP is a program model that seeks to transform entire markets instead of focusing on an individual consumer’s behavior.  Because ESRPP operates under a market transformation model that is fundamentally different than traditional consumer rebate programs, a tailored approach to evaluating program results is required.  

Given that the ESRPP introduces a market transformation program approach in areas that still run traditional consumer rebate programs, the evaluation community recognizes the need for evaluation methods to be developed that are appropriate to the program theory underlying ESRPP; however, they also report that they will need more time and experience with ESRPP before they can arrive at consensus on a prescriptive evaluation methodology for programs like ESRPP. 

Results from program sponsor evaluations include:

• Increased sales for program-qualified models leading to short-term savings in certain product categories.
• Initial evidence that ESRPP has begun to influence the market in a manner consistent with the near-term program theory for ESRPP. For example, the outputs and activities documented in ESRPP logic models, such as increased collaboration, ability to place in-store signage, and program activity decisions being based on program data, are occurring.
• Cost-effectiveness research, while requiring additional evaluation to account for market transformation impacts, shows significant prospects for most product categories to be cost effective.

Recent examples of Program Evaluations for ESRPP Programs

Connecticut: 

 CT R1973 Retail Non-Lighting Evaluation Results

Pacific Northwest:

NEEA (2021): Retail Product Portfolio Market Progress Evaluation Report #1 

NEEA (2023): Retail Product Portfolio Market Progress Evaluation Report #2 

Indiana:

IMP (2024): 2023 Indiana Residential Portfolio EM&V Report