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EPA Best Practice Guidelines for New Homes Programs
In April 2007, EPA brought together representatives from a number of local and regional ENERGY STAR Homes programs for a two-day session in Atlanta, Georgia, to identify lessons learned and best practice recommendations for new program sponsors and existing sponsors looking to improve on their programs. The extensive input provided during this meeting as well as EPA’s decade-plus of experience working with diverse stakeholders to implement the program nationally are reflected in EPA’s recently-published ENERGY STAR for New Homes Partner and Utility Sponsor Guide. The Guide is available on the ENERGY STAR web site at www.energystar.gov/homes.
Sam Rashkin, National Director of ENERGY STAR for Homes, highlighted key points from this best practices guide at the Whole House Committee breakout session in Long Beach. He began by identifying several types of incentives that utilities and other program sponsors use in their new homes programs (e.g., cash rebates, free or subsidized training). Their research shows that there is not a correlation between the level of incentives offered and program growth (Figure 1).
Figure 1
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The practices that do have a strong correlation to program growth are set forth in the Sponsor Guide. The Guide first presents the top builder barriers to energy-efficient construction: high cost, lack of consumer demand, lack of sales skills, industry resistance to change, and lack of technical infrastructure. It then provides three modules for how these barriers are successfully overcome: program design, marketing and implementation, and program evaluation. Each module contains an introduction, lessons learned, best practices designed specifically to address the five barriers identified above, and several program sponsor success stories.
The table from the Guide shown below (Table 1) contains the best practices for program design.
Table 1: Program Design Best Practices
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High Cost
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- Consider the most effective options for program incentives (e.g., consider successful strategies that worked in similar markets)
- Train builders how to sell the value of energy-efficient homes
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Lack of Consumer Demand
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- Provide funding to educate consumers
- Choose the most effective options for educating consumers (e.g., consult consumer research)
- Develop consumer testimonials
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Lack of Sales Skills
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- Develop builder sales training
- Develop train-the-trainer sales programs
- Develop point-of-sale materials and/or templates for builders (e.g., displays, banners, fact sheets, homeowner manuals)
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Indusstry Resistance to Change
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- Create an effective value message for recruiting builders
- Consider incentives that effectively address builder business priorities (e.g., suggest linking incentives to individual sales staff)
- Incorporate partner recognition into the program (e.g., awards, advertising public relations, builder listing)
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Lack of Technical Infrastructure
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- Develop local HERS infrastructure
- Develop technical support (e.g., reference materials, how-to guides)
- Develop train-the-trainer for technical subjects
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Program sponsor and CEE member Oncor Electric Delivery in Dallas, Texas, is featured as one of the success stories. Oncor conducted market research that showed that large national builders dominated their local market. In addition, the building code had been updated and there was a weak HERS rating infrastructure. Oncor chose to focus resources on the lack of rating infrastructure which was considered their largest barrier. Oncor provided training and free HERS accreditation, subsidized raters’ up-front expenses, and provided free HERS plan analyses. As a result, the HERS infrastructure grew from one rater in 2006 to 16 in 2007, allowing Oncor to phase out incentives in 2004. By 2006, there were 46,000 ENERGY STAR qualified homes with 25 percent market penetration.
Sam wrapped up his presentation by summarizing the key lessons learned by program sponsors and ENERGY STAR:
- Every market is different; research first.
- HERS rating infrastructure is critical.
- Larger incentives are not always better.
- Always include a strong marketing component.
- Training is worth investing in experts.
- Incorporate evaluation from the start.
- Be disciplined with evaluation.
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