An Efficient Future in Store: Building Scale for Retail Product Efficiency

By designing the ENERGY STAR® Retail Products Platform (ESRPP) around the retailer’s business model, the alliance has cultivated a highly scalable and influential nationwide Market Transformation collaboration.

As of 2024, participating ESRPP retailers account for 75 percent of all U.S. appliance sales, while the program’s utility sponsors represent 30 million households across the country, including approximately 6 million homes in
the Northwest.

The alliance leads the ESRPP by collaborating directly with major manufacturers and retailers to elevate household product efficiency, stocking practices, product test procedures, specifications and federal
standards. The innovative, comprehensive ESRPP utilizes the alliance’s proven Market Transformation strategies to intervene in the market to create lasting change by:

• Providing retailers with midstream incentives when they sell qualified ENERGY STAR products across a variety of categories.
• Supporting retailer merchandising efforts, including through collaboration on product training and promotion.
• Collecting category-level sales data from retailers representing tens of millions of transactions.
• Utilizing the data to 1) measure and adjust ESRPP and other Market Transformation strategies, and 2) influence product test procedures, specifications and federal standards.

ESRPP Program Sponsors

30 million US households (31%)

National Scale to Benefit Northwest Consumers

Over the years, these long-term relationships with national and international market actors have evolved into
a variety of permanent efficiency gains and ongoing innovation. For example, NEEA is currently collaborating
with Samsung, LG and Whirlpool on a strategy to include variable-speed compressors in the ENERGY STAR
refrigerator specification, as well as exploring additional ways to drive heat-pump technology into the clothes dryer market with GE, LG and Samsung.

The ESRPP is built on the understanding that influencing product efficiency extends beyond decision-making
at local retailers. By convening utilities and energy efficiency organizations around the country, the program
offers a consistent, simplified midstream incentive program to fundamentally influence how retail products
are stocked, sold and developed. Since the program’s launch in 2015, NEEA has assembled a variety of
national players, including Best Buy, Lowe’s, Nationwide Marketing Group and The Home Depot. These
partners represent over 300 retail store locations across the Northwest, including both big box stores and
independent retailers serving customers in smaller communities throughout Idaho, Montana, Oregon and
Washington. Only by working directly with these national entities is the alliance able to transform the retail
efficiency landscape to directly benefit consumers across the region.

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Deploying Data to Shape the Future

Key to the continued success of ESRPP, participating retailers provide the program with comprehensive,
category-level sales data to help the region identify and target the greatest opportunities for efficiency.
By gaining access to tens of millions of discrete sales transactions, the alliance is equipped with powerful
insight into consumer behavior and market trends to ensure that current and future Market Transformation
strategies are always based on customer needs.

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2024 ESRPP Product Portfolio:

Product	Basic (e.g. ENERGY STAR)	Advanced (e.g. Most Efficient)
Clothes Dryers	•	•
Clothes Washers	•	•
All-in-One Washer/Dryer Combo	•	•
Freezers	•	•
Refrigerators	•	•
Room Air Conditioners	•	•
Room Air Cleaners	•	•
Connected Thermostats	•
Residential Electric Cooking	•	•
Televisions <50″	•
Televisions  ≥ 50″		•
Heat Pump Water Heaters	•

This data has revealed powerful opportunities to continue evolving product efficiency for Northwest consumers well into the future. By using the data to develop new product test procedures that more accurately reflect the way consumers actually use the latest technologies, the alliance influences specification advancements that permanently raise the performance baseline for the products Northwest consumers bring into their homes. For example, NEEA recently convened stakeholders and led an effort to develop a more accurate and comprehensive test procedure for modern televisions. Now adopted nationally and providing influence
internationally, this improved test procedure raises the standard for the entire product category while giving the market confidence to introduce the next wave of technology advancements for consumers in the Northwest
and across the globe.

For more information, visit neea.org/RPP.