Takeoff Delayed in Incentive Programs for Energy-Efficient TVs in Northeast

An effort to get California-style utility incentive programs for energy-efficient consumer electronics in the northeastern states floundered this year because of a lack of consensus on how to run the programs, said an official of the Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships. NEEP had sought to bring utilities in the region together to support incentive programs for CE products, especially TVs, but failed to get agreement on how to run them and whether “there was going to be enough claimed [energy] saving to run them,” said David Lis, appliance standards project manager. The group will make a renewed push in 2011, he said.

Under models PG&E and other California utilities and members of the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance adopted, retailers got an incentive of up to $25 for each Energy Star TV sold. The aim was to increase the market share of energy-efficient TVs. Trying to replicate the programs in the Northeast proved to be a “little bit more difficult” because “different states operate under different regulatory policies” for utilities, Lis said. “So it is a challenge to get them to adopt something in a consistent fashion."

Utility incentive programs in the northeast are trying to figure out how to approach electronics, which is different from larger white goods “where there is larger savings per unit,” he said. “In the consumer electronics sector, you are talking about higher volumes but less differentiation in the market in terms of efficiency.” So it’s difficult for utilities to claim a “whole bunch of savings” for each CE unit to justify incentives, he said. “The idea is to figure out the models that work for addressing high volumes of these products."

Devising incentive models for TVs will be a “strong focus” of NEEP’s regional initiatives in 2011, he said. Also on the radar will be programs to incentivize energy-efficient computers and monitors, he said. Meanwhile, the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance said its TV incentive program “exceeded expectations” in 2009. The program, covering utilities in Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington, had set an efficiency standard of 30 percent above Energy Star levels. The market share of “super-efficient” TVs went up 15 percent in the northwest as a result, it said.