Sharing Proven Strategies for Energy Efficiency Programs

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Neighborhood Program leveraged about $500 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding to help more than 40 residential energy efficiency programs demonstrate successful approaches to energy-saving home and building upgrades. DOE needed a way to make the myriad and valuable lessons its partners learned, as well as the tools and resources they developed, readily available to other residential energy efficiency programs across the country.

ERG helped DOE develop a one-stop shop for home energy efficiency innovation—the Residential Program Solution Center. ERG’s team of residential energy experts helped distill evidence of successful examples of energy efficiency program business models, marketing and outreach, financing, workforce development, and evaluation into a series of step-by-step handbooks. Leveraging our experience with the energy efficiency marketplace and our expertise in implementing behavior change programs, we synthesized lessons learned and identified tips and real-world examples about how programs can increase demand for home energy upgrades. ERG continues to keep an eye on the ever-evolving home energy arena to keep the Solution Center up to date with additional proven solutions to the industry’s biggest challenges.