ENERGY STAR Retail Products Platform Program Details

The ESRPP Collaborative and Task Forces

The ENERGY STAR Retail Products Platform (ESRPP) is a voluntary collaboration between Program Sponsors (“the Collaborative”). The combined efforts and influence of the Collaborative help move retailers’ buying and marketing decisions towards qualifying ESRPP models and can play a role in EPA’s plans for new and enhanced ENERGY STAR specifications.  This collective influence is facilitated by consistent program design and implementation*, and active communication among program participants. 

Communication among ESRPP participants occurs in regularly scheduled structured meetings and in ESRPP task forces.  ESRPP task forces have been active in developing, assessing and implementing major components of ESRPP since its inception.  These groups meet to review progress, resolve issues or questions, share best practices, support process improvements, and plan for the future of ESRPP.  ESRPP is a collaborative effort, so all decisions are made at the task force level once a consensus is reached among participants.  This ensures that all participants have a voice in the national program.  ESRPP includes the following activities and task forces: 

• Program Governance Committee (PGC): This group supports ESRPP success by advising critical Program decisions, Program design and Program strategies.  This includes alignment between local programs, when possible, to be consistent with the overarching goals and objectives of ESRPP. The PGC also supports recruitment of additional sponsors and meets with the retailers on a quarterly basis to review program progress. The Collaborative holds this call 10 times per year.
• Products Task Force:  This group is responsible for the development and execution of product-specific strategies, including adding, removing, or updating product categories and their qualifying levels.  Additionally, this group coordinates on ENERGY STAR specification input to EPA as appropriate.  The task force meets monthly.
• EM&V Task Force:  This group deals with evaluation, measurement, and verification (EM&V) strategies and market transformation approaches, challenges, and best practices relevant to the Collaborative’s ESRPP efforts. The task force also coordinates the national retailer interviews conducted on behalf of the Collaborative.  Market transformation whitepapers and completed evaluations are available on the ESRPP shared file site.  The taskforce meets as needed. 

*The initial group of Program Sponsors and key stakeholders have been sensitive to anti-trust considerations during the early development of the ESRPP. Accordingly, preserving the ability for participants to choose product categories at their discretion and to set incentive levels independently are important elements of the platform. It is recommended that each participant conduct their own legal due diligence. 

2025 Program Sponsors

• California: CalMTA and SMUD
• Connecticut: Eversource CT, UIL Holdings
• Hawaii: Hawaii Energy
• Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington: NEEA
• Illinois: ComEd
• Indiana, Michigan: Indiana Michigan Power
• Maryland: BGE, PEPCO, SMECO, Delmarva Power, Potomac Edison-First Energy
• North Carolina: Dominion Energy
• New York: NYSERDA
• Virginia: Dominion Energy
• Vermont: Efficiency Vermont

ESRPP Calendar and Key Dates

A common ESRPP calendar identifying program start and end dates, time dependent activities and deadlines is essential for running a unified program.  While market transformation is a multi-year process with long term baselines, ESRPP budgeting and program decisions follow an annual calendar.  The ESRPP calendar is designed to align with retailers’ merchandising calendar and ENERGY STAR’s schedule for national promotions. 

• ESRPP Calendar: The ESRPP program year begins April 1st each calendar year and ends March 31st in the following calendar year.  This timing accounts for the peak holiday season for retailers and their buying timeframes for appliances and electronics.  National ENERGY STAR promotions also follow this cadence.
• Product Selection: Product categories and tiers are finalized by the September before the start of each program year. This allows Sponsors to get necessary regulatory, budget, and savings calculations approvals in advance of the April 1 program start date. This timing is critically important to the success of ESRPP’s market transformation approach, as it ensures that this information is available to retailers in time to influence assortment decisions for the new year.  Product categories, tiers, and incentive rates are mandatory information for retailer contracts.
• Contracting:
  • Retailer Contracts: Each Program Sponsor executes a standardized contract – the ESRPP Universal Participation Agreement, or UPA – with each participating retailer.  Once the pre-negotiated UPA is in place, it does not change but is updated annually with a simple amendment for each new program year.  The initial UPA and annual amendments must be executed prior to the initial April 1 program start date.  However, efforts to finalize annual contract documents earlier than the start date – closer to December – can produce a more meaningful influence on retailers’ assortment and marketing decisions related to ESRPP.
  • Data Management Contracts: Data management contracts must be executed before the start of the program.  After both the data management and retailer contracts are in place, retailers will provide one year of historical data to the data management provider for new products or new Program Sponsors.
• Incentive Budgets:  Program Sponsors have varying budget approval cycles, but generally begin their individual and independent budgeting process before September each year.  Sponsors’ incentive budgets are generally submitted to retailers and the data management provider during January or February prior to program start, although earlier submittal is ideal for retailer assortment planning purposes.
• Regulatory Approvals: Every jurisdiction has different regulatory requirements and deadlines, but regulatory and annual budget approvals are generally required before contracts can be signed.
• Collaborative meetings: ESRPP is a collaboration among stakeholders.  Sponsors and task forces regularly meet to strategize, plan, and discuss best practices as needed. 

ESRPP Program Timeline

Budgeting and Forecasting

An ESRPP budget typically encompasses incentives as well as other implementation costs including data management, product and savings analysis, evaluation, marketing and field services.   

Incentives are the largest program cost and need to be appropriately forecast and tracked. Most Program Sponsors operate on a financial year from January 1st through December 31st and begin their budgeting cycles during the third quarter of the calendar year. Budgeting and forecasting must account for the ESRPP calendar and retailer contracts, which span the twelve months from April 1st to March 31st in the next calendar year.  Financial and sales data in the ESRPP data portal allow ESRPP program managers to create annual budget forecasts, track actual performance against budgets and update forecasts as necessary.   

• Budgeting: The annual ESRPP program budget for incentives is based on trends for retailer sales in the sponsor’s service territory and the incentive rates for products and tiers in the portfolio.  Since participating retailers do not supply actual sales data until contracts are in place, Program Sponsors prepare a first year incentive budget based on an annual qualified product sales estimate using the number of stores by retailer in a service area and national sales trends. While each Program Sponsor will have different budgeting needs and guidelines, the following are some common items to keep in mind while preparing a forecast and managing a budget:  
  • Incentive budgets can be constructed at different levels of detail.  The most detailed level looks at looks at monthly incentives paid by product tier and by retailer.  Many ESRPP program managers find it acceptable to forecast and track budgets by product tier only.   
  • Retailers provide a forecast of incentives that they expect to receive during the program year after they sign their contract.
  • Each program year, Program Sponsors independently determine incentive rates for their selected products and product tiers, considering budget constraints and the ability to influence retailers.
  • When using sales data from the ESRPP portal for budgeting, Program Sponsors keep in mind that sales trends vary monthly and by product category, and that retailers may open or close stores over the course of a year.
  • Most incentive budgets follow a calendar year and will have to align with the program calendar.  Product tiers and incentive rates for the first quarter of the calendar year will likely be different than the tiers and incentives for the second through fourth quarters.
  • When tracking budgets and updating forecasts, it is important to note that there is a one to two-month delay between qualified products sales and the invoice for incentives.
  • Forecasting and tracking sales by tier also allows program managers to estimate energy savings. Retailer forecasts can be a confirmation of a sponsor’s budget and a benchmark for forecast revisions.
• Forecasting:  Forecasting upcoming sales relative to the available budget is a critical program management activity.  Most Program Sponsors review financial information on a monthly basis, monitoring variances between forecasts and actual results.  Revisions to forecasts take into account sales to date, the seasonality of sales, the number of participating retailers, and the lag time between the date of sales data reporting and date of payment to retailers.
  • The ESRPP data management portal offers reports to track budgets and provides advance notification to Program Sponsors so they can manage within budget.  Incentives are paid to retailers on qualified products sold on a first come basis, up to the budget allocated by the Program Sponsor.
  • Budget tracking identifies any potential shortage or excess of funds for a product category.  The ability to shift funds between product categories varies by jurisdiction.  Program Sponsors monitor these budget tracking reports on an ongoing basis to ensure they meet the contractual requirement to notify retailers 60 days before available funding will be exhausted. 

Data Management

Access to retailer sales data is one of the most important program benefits of ESRPP since it allows program sponsors to directly track the sales impacts and market share changes from the program.  Retailers upload full category sales data for program qualified and non-qualified sales into the ESRPP data portal.  The data processes used by the ESRPP data administration firm(s)[1] identify qualified sales and create invoices that the Program Sponsors use to pay retailers. 

• Data Portal: Retailers upload sales data monthly into a centralized data management system.  The ESRPP data administration firm processes sales data each month no later than 20th of the month.  For example, January sales are processed before February 20th. Each Sponsor executes a separate contract with the data administration firm for access to the data portal and data management services.
• Data access and confidentiality: As part of ESRPP, retailers agree to provide full-category sales data for all incentivized products, pursuant to the confidentiality restrictions detailed in the Participation Agreement.  Program Sponsors have full access to qualified sales data for products and tiers in their portfolio.  Program Sponsors can view non-qualified sales reports that aggregate data and do not identify retailers or brands.  The confidential nature of this data requires that Program Sponsors and their contractors adhere to rigorous data security requirements as outlined in their Data Management contract.
• Data Quality and Consistency: To ensure accuracy of both program incentive payments and energy savings claims, the ESRPP data administration firm ensures that model matching and other key steps in the data management process are executed to a prescribed degree of accuracy.  The data management system removes ineligible models by matching each sale against a qualified store list, against the sponsor’s list of incented products and tiers, and against the ESRPP Program qualified products list (QPL), which in turn is based on the ENERGY STAR QPL. Accurate model matching against the QPL ensures that the program correctly reflects ENERGY STAR market share.
• How the Data are Used:
  • Program Management: Program Sponsors use the data to pay incentives.  Data in the portal allow program managers to check that the incentives are billed correctly and to monitor trends for forecasting and future budgeting.
  • Product Portfolio Management: The Products Task Force uses the data to track market share over time and determine if the current products and tiers are set correctly.  Data provide guidance to timing and levels of tiers when they are updated as the market responds to ESRPP’s interventions.
  • EM&V: Each Program Sponsor’s evaluation team uses ESRPP sales data to track the success of program interventions by program category and tier, and to calculate savings.  Data quality is one key to successful evaluations.
  • ENERGY STAR specification setting/revision: The ESRPP Collaborative can use sales and market penetration trends to support their advocacy for new and/or more stringent ENERGY STAR specifications. ESRPP’s total category sales data provides a unique view of the market for energy efficient products and enables data analysis and feedback on the following:
    • ENERGY STAR market share trends over time for existing and proposed levels
    • National average gross energy savings of more efficient technology
    • Test methods used to measure unit energy consumption
    • Emerging technologies that may improve efficiency
    • Gaps in qualification criteria for current and/or proposed product specifications.
• Resources: More information about data management is available through the ESRPP Data Task Force and in the data guidelines on the ESRPP shared file site.