Peter Turnbull Pacific Gas and Electric Company

Fifty-four attendees representing 35 organizations attended an all-day workshop explaining the resources for efficiency program administrators provided by ENERGY STAR on January 15. Kelly Huston of FortisBC commented “ENERGY STAR is fairly new to us, and we have definitely endorsed ENERGY STAR. It’s very good to come down and get the commercial and industrial information. We haven’t used it yet. Very exciting to rethink the fourth R!” Huston, who was referring to reduce, reuse, recycle, and repair, demonstrated the kind of enthusiasm evident across the room.

In addition to ensuring that long-standing CEE members are aware of the vast offering of support tools and materials from ENERGY STAR, CEE sponsored the workshop to introduce the resources available through ENERGY STAR to current and prospective members. A CEE survey of members' knowledge of ENERGY STAR indicated opportunities for greater use. Newcomers could also learn from member experiences in using ENERGY STAR as a program platform. CEE recognized members and program administrators need information on ENERGY STAR program design possibilities and challenges, along with helping them find available resources. With a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, this workshop is the first of the Ask the Experts series produced by CEE.

Marc Hoffman, executive director of CEE, spoke briefly about the day and explained that the overall purpose of Ask the Experts is to support the National Action Plan for Energy Efficiency, often referred to as the Action Plan, which envisions achieving all cost-effective energy efficiency by 2025. Part of the strategy for achieving this ambitious goal is to strengthen new efficiency programs, and one way to do that is through smart use of the ENERGY STAR brand.

Brand Management
Patterned after program meetings, the workshop opened with information of general interest about ENERGY STAR before splitting into breakout groups on specific topics after lunch. John Taylor, CEE staff member and ENERGY STAR liaison, introduced the morning topics, which covered brand management, cobranding, and support tools found at ENERGY STAR. Sam Rashkin, from EPA residential, conveyed the importance of strategic brand management with a presentation that reviewed the past and future of ENERGY STAR, the brand basics, and some of the many products and services that are currently branded. According to Rashkin, ENERGY STAR has been very successful, with sales and abated emissions going up steadily year after year. And the future brings better news, with an expected doubling of abatement over the next ten years. The single strongest message Rashkin brought to his audience was not to overestimate the degree to which you can connect with the audience emotionally in your brand management, especially in their concern for the environment.

Cobranding
Cynthia Jolicoeur, a marketing consultant who often works with ENERGY STAR and CEE members, followed with an insightful analysis of cobranding strategies that work. She provided program ideas for how energy companies could present their brand along with ENERGY STAR. Brands associate with similar socioeconomic signifiers, for example, Nike and iPod are candidates for cobranding since runners tend to jog while listening to music on MP3 players. Utilities can gain credibility and trust by working with a government-backed brand such as ENERGY STAR that has a specific meaning to consumers. A counterexample is “green,” which is losing credibility since it's not substantiated with a trusted backing the way the U.S. government backs ENERGY STAR.

A common cobranding technique that many efficiency programs use is to partner with both ENERGY STAR and a retailer, such as a hardware store. Each brand resonates with a particular audience and gains additional credibility from the other brands. Jolicoeur closed with a description of the contractual steps for working with ENERGY STAR.

Working Across Sectors
Hewan Tomlinson and Tracy Narel, both of EPA, finished up the morning by explaining in more detail about the ways in which ENERGY STAR supports program administrators. In particular, Tomlinson talked about ways administrators can look across sectors to achieve greater synchronization in their programs.

Narel gave an overview of commercial and industrial tools. He explained that ENERGY STAR is more than a product label, that it's a way to identify common aims and objectives (e.g. reducing building energy use by a particular percentage) and offers many opportunities for CEE members to increase their effectiveness in the commercial and industrial sectors. Efficiency is valuable to business, but in the past it has tended to be personality dependent, coming and going with particular personnel. The challenge now is to build systems that continue to work over time. ENERGY STAR's commercial building benchmarking tools are an example.

The presentations generated lots of audience buzz at the breaks from both newcomers and old hands alike. Blake Watson responded to the morning's presentations: “Very helpful. Idaho has low energy rates due to the predominance of hydropower, so it's good to think about how to bring home small business customers and raise consumer awareness." Tom Sagstetter, from CEE's newest member, Great River Energy serving Minnesota coops, and who works with residential construction, felt that the workshop helped unravel the various organizations with “green” certifications.

Breakout sessions in the afternoon allowed those with special interests in either the residential or commercial and industrial area to dig into greater detail. During the residential session, EPA and DOE staff covered consumer electronics, appliances, lighting HVAC, new homes, and home performance.

Commercial and Industrial Session
Tracy Narel set the stage for the commercial and industrial breakout session by discussing how some of the best insights about ENERGY STAR have actually come from outside both the DOE and EPA. When people are faced with real world markets and conditions, along with the investment they have or plan to make, they can meet difficult challenges, and these diverse stakeholders have enhanced the ENERGY STAR brand.

In addition to a presenter from ENERGY STAR, each session included a panel of program administrators experienced in running relevant programs. Peter Turnbull, a senior program manager at Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) with twenty years of experience, went on to demonstrate a very cool solution to Governor Schwarzenegger's executive order to benchmark buildings. Through an automated upload of billing data from PG&E, and a web application of ENERGY STAR's Portfolio Manager that allows for customers to add additional data such as square footage, building energy usage could be evaluated and compared. Peter Turnbull also spoke to the energy savings available in commercial kitchens, made possible through ENERGY STAR branding of appliances.

Jean Bardeaux of Xcel spoke to their use of ENERGY STAR in whole building performance. She explained three steps that her program follows. Using the utility brand and subcontracting to a Philadelphia energy services company (ESCO), they analyze who benefits and who pays for energy reduction. Secondly, a third-party professional engineer spends one day evaluating the building to establish an ENERGY STAR benchmark. The ROI analysis that follows is a great motivator for the asset manager who receives it. He or she selects the amendments to pursue, and an investment grade engineering study is done for those amendments. Lastly, the utility makes a 30 percent payment on top of rebates to the building owner when the implementation is complete.

George Malek of ComEd, a LEED accredited engineer, also spoke to whole building performance. He commented that their program was in its infancy; the law starting it passed in August 2007. Through ideas from contacts he's made at CEE, Malek was able to put together a program quickly enough to meet the November 15 filing deadline.

Like Turnbull, he essentially viewed this work as an information technology job. They request the data, receive it, scrub it to make it consistent, aggregate it with energy use data, then return it to the building manager. Their next phase is to automate the process, as PG&E has already done.

Christine Kautzman from Cascade Gas commented that they use a third party to deliver both residential and commercial efficiency. She appreciates how much work ENERGY STAR does with electricity, but is hoping to explore some new avenues with ENERGY STAR on gas HVAC. Lisa Espinosa, also of Cascade Gas, confirmed Kautzman's remark that ENERGY STAR should continue to expand their offerings for gas-fired products. Gas is about processes and products, so services may drive the efficiencies there. Narel took this opportunity to say they were consciously deemphasizing fuel details for an overview class, but that all forms of energy—electricity, gas, and steam—are included in whole building calculations.

Tracy Narel transitioned the second half of the commercial and industrial session from whole building to industrial applications by commenting once again on what a large opportunity this sector presents. ENERGY STAR has 500 partners, including those in the product area. Benchmarking is a good business practice, especially as businesses begin to view energy as a strategic input rather than an expense. As this transition occurs, ENERGY STAR becomes a business tool, rather than a benchmarking tool.

Ed McGlynn, an ICF International ENERGY STAR support contractor, spoke about his assignment to support programs' use of ENERGY STAR. In his view, ENERGY STAR resources are geared to end users, so utilities need to consider how they can benefit and put their own spin on the toolkit. Another consideration is to keep your local politicians and municipalities happy. ENERGY STAR provides partnerships with ESCOs and service and product providers. Highlights of this session included ENERGY STAR developments that created new partnerships, next steps in delivering Whole Building energy performance, and best practices for standardized information. Jon Linn, of NEEP, commented, “Great opportunity to get the whole story-to hear about all the resources.”

Residential Session
The Residential session also included a panel of long time experts ((Janis Erickson, SMUD; John Jones, NYSERDA; Kate Ringe-Welch, NGRID) who answered questions about cobranding and provided testimonials about their companies' successful use of ENERGY STAR. John Jones stressed the importance of building demand and how ENERGY STAR fits into NYSERDA's ambitious marketing program. Janis Erickson explained that SMUD views the ENERGY STAR process as a means for SMUD to influence national energy efficiency policy in a positive manner while building an asset for the utilities to use. Ringe-Welch described the difficulty associated with running multiple programs before the creation of ENERGY STAR and described ENERGY STAR as collaborative, consistent, and a valuable investment for utilities to leverage.

Almost everyone at this workshop recognized that ENERGY STAR has a larger portfolio of tools than they had previously realized. Other takeaways from this energizing event included the fact that efficiency administrators and ENERGY STAR have a common target audience and can be successful partners. The day also reinforced the value that CEE provides as a useful two-way conduit of information between ENERGY STAR and CEE members.

[ back to top ]