Category Archives: Guest Contributors

Nearly every consumer appliance and electronics program developed in the past two decades has left considerable energy savings on the table.  How do I know?  Because until this year, program administrators lacked tools to help steer consumers from appliances and electronics that were merely more efficient than standard models to those that were at the top of the efficiency peak.

Enter TopTen USA. The growing nonprofit, whose board is chaired by NEEP founder Sue Coakley, was created to serve that exact function: To help program administrators achieve more savings from any program by adding and promoting higher incentives for the best of the best.  TopTen only looks at widely available products which (in categories covered by ENERGY STAR^®) have already received their ENERGY STAR designation.  Within that group, TopTen ranks the ten efficiency winners from among the hundreds of products which have qualified for the ENERGY STAR label. Continue reading →

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Penni McLean-Conner, NSTAR

Beginning in 2012, new federal standards for energy efficiency will usher in an era of improved lighting options for consumers. If we take time now to familiarize ourselves and our customers with the coming changes, we’ll all be more informed shoppers when the new standards go into effect.

The Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA), signed by President George W. Bush in 2007, requires that light bulbs use less energy beginning this coming January. It’s a common misconception that the Act bans incandescent light bulbs. It actually doesn’t.  But the EISA’s minimum efficiency standards are high enough that the incandescent lamps most commonly used by consumers today will not meet the new requirements. So the Act will essentially eliminate most traditional 100-, 75-, 60- and 40-watt incandescent light bulbs between 2012 and 2014. Continue reading →

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