New Policy on ENERGY STAR Certification for Plants
Please note an important upcoming change to the way EPA will assign a label year for
certified plants. Starting on January 1, 2012, the year on your plant certification label will
be based on the year in which your application is approved, regardless of the period
ending date on your Statement of Energy Performance (SEP).
•	EXAMPLE: A plant submits an ENERGY STAR application in December 2011 with data
for the 12-month period ending November 30, 2011 on their SEP. The application is
reviewed by EPA and approved in February 2012. The plant receives a 2012 ENERGY
STAR certification.
Application deadline to earn 2011 ENERGY STAR plant certification:
The deadline for applying for the 2011 ENERGY STAR certification is September 15,
2011. This deadline is to ensure that EPA has sufficient time to process all applications
and compliance screens prior to the close of 2011. This deadline will also hold in future
years (e.g., September 15, 2012 will be the deadline for submitting an application for the
2012 certification).
For plants that received the 2010 ENERGY STAR certification, but have not yet
applied for 2011 certification:
EPA understands that this new policy may affect the timing of your internal data tracking
procedures and your eligibility for a 2011 certification if you had planned to apply for
your 2011 certification after September 15th. To ensure that your plant is able to earn a
2011 certification, you will be eligible to apply for the ENERGY STAR using a 12-month
period that may overlap with data submitted for the previous year's certification by up to
six months. Data overlap will only be permitted for the 2011 label year so that you are
able to reset the data period for your plant. We encourage you to take advantage of this
opportunity to continue to demonstrate your superior performance with 2011 ENERGY
STAR certification.
•	EXAMPLE: A plant submitted an ENERGY STAR application in December 2010 with
data for the 12-month period ending November 30, 2010 on their SEP, and received a
2010	ENERGY STAR certification. If that plant waits until December 2011 to submit its
next application, it will miss the 2011 certification deadline. Therefore, for 2011 only, this
plant may use up to six months of data from the previous year's application. This plant
might choose to submit an application covering August 1, 2010 through July 31, 2011
(so the four months of data covering August-November 2010 is used for both 2010 and
2011	certifications), thus enabling that plant to earn 2011 certification.
When choosing your 12-month data period, please keep in mind that your application
for certification must be submitted within four months of the end of your 12-month data
period.
Please contact Rebecca Hindin at (202) 343-9939 with any questions.

-------