Clues to Technical Intervention’s Role in New Home Market Transformation: A Measure of Penetration Rates Using Building America and ENERGY STAR® Datasets

Michael Baechler, Heidi Steward, and Douglas Elliott, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

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Abstract

An important part of transforming markets is motivating manufacturers to improve their products. In the case of housing, manufacturers consist of a complex mix of builders ranging from Fortune 500 companies building thousands of homes per year all over the country, to small local companies that may build less than ten homes per year. Motivating these diverse companies to adopt energy-efficient building practices requires a combination of technical development, education, and the creation of a market that clearly identifies efficiency as a preference. But, in order to participate, builders need to know what to build and how to build it.

ENERGY STAR® for homes has successfully found niches in many of the most active building markets in the nation. This paper explores the relationship between ENERGY STAR’s success, especially in the early years, and the role of building research and education as undertaken by DOE’s Building America Program. Using an empirical review of builder participation databases maintained by these two programs, the paper will show that Building America was instrumental in establishing a nucleus of competent builders in key markets that went on to participate in the ENERGY STAR program. Building America’s activities involved design intervention and field instruction for production builders. The paper will show that these builders went on to actively participate in ENERGY STAR, building 50% of labeled homes in some years, in selected markets. At the same time, the ENERGY STAR program motivated builders not trained by Building America to build the other 50% of houses.