NEEA’s ENERGY STAR® Retail Products Platform (ESRPP) program is an innovative concept in energy efficiency program design.
Coordinating with EPA ENERGY STAR, the platform works directly with corporate-level national retailers to provide mid-stream incentives on qualified energy-efficient products. These incentives influence retail buying and stocking practices, to ultimately drive manufacturing and higher product standards and specifications for a portfolio of energy-efficient products sold through the retail channel.
In exchange for the incentives, retailers provide full-category sales data for all products in the portfolio. NEEA uses this sales data to conduct extensive analysis of the efficiency profile of each product category, as well as identifying market trends and efficiency opportunities.
Based on this data analysis, NEEA has identified specific market transformation intervention strategies that will best achieve energy savings for each product category. This approach includes supporting more progressive product specifications, by demonstrating that a given specification has market share above its target range. In this case, the ESRPP collaborative can work with ENERGY STAR to revise the specification and increase the stringency to target greater efficiency and drive demand for more efficient products. In the process, ESRPP is able to share aggregated sales data that is much more accurate – and valuable – than data available through any other source.
NEEA achieves this and other interventions by leveraging national scale to maximize its investment in the program. Through ESRPP, NEEA works with four national retailers (Home Depot, Lowe’s, Best Buy and Nationwide Marketing Group), which collectively have over 300 store locations in NEEA territory. In addition, these retailers represent up to 75% of the US market for several products in the portfolio.
In addition to national retailers, ESRPP also includes collaboration with utilities and efficiency organizations around the country. As of 2023, the ENERGY STAR RPP collaborative includes 15 program sponsors representing 11 states and approximately 21% of US households. Through this collaboration, NEEA can amplify its voice with both participating retailers and EPA ENERGY STAR.
The ENERGY STAR Retail Products Platform (ESRPP) builds on a long history of transforming the plug load and consumer electronics markets with a midstream, retailer-focused strategy.
NEEA approaches the program as a portfolio of individual products, each with strategic intervention points within a cohesive market transformation theory. Here's an overview of NEEA’s approach to evaluating its participation in ESRPP.
