An official website of the United States government.

This is not the current EPA website. To navigate to the current EPA website, please go to www.epa.gov. This website is historical material reflecting the EPA website as it existed on January 19, 2021. This website is no longer updated and links to external websites and some internal pages may not work. More information »

Energy Resources for State and Local Governments

Energy and Environment Guide to Action - Chapter 4.1: Energy Efficiency Resource Standards

This document is 'Chapter 4.1: Energy Efficiency Resource Standards' of the Energy and Environment Guide to Action. Energy Efficiency Resource Standards (EERSs) require obligated parties—usually retail distributors of electricity—to meet a specific portion of their electricity demand through energy efficiency (NCSL 2014).

As of March 2015, 27 states have some type of energy efficiency requirement or goal. Twenty-three states have mandatory energy efficiency requirements, two states have voluntary targets, and two states allow energy efficiency as a compliance option for their renewable portfolio standard (RPS)15 (ACEEE 2014d; DSIRE 2015).

EERS designs vary considerably across the states. They vary in terms of:

•  The target type—incremental or annual, relative (percent) or absolute (gigawatt-hour, or GWh), rolling or fixed.
•  Responsible entities.
•  The portion of load covered.
•  The stringency of targets.

You may need a PDF reader to view some of the files on this page. See EPA’s About PDF page to learn more.