The British Photovoltaic Association (BPVA) has launched the first ever loyalty reward programme for the renewable energy industry. The BPVA’s National Energy Card is set to become the world’s only renewable energy loyalty reward programme and is designed to help foster sustainable growth in the industry by giving consumers three key benefits, namely: accurate and up-to-date information; access to high quality and reliable renewable energy products and services; and meaningful rewards linked to their purchases.

The National Energy Card will be freely available to all interested consumers at no cost. Members of the loyalty programme will be able to get discounts on products and services from the National Energy Card’s Programme Partners including, access to finance, insurance and extended warranties for various renewable technologies including solar PV.

Reza Shaybani, the Chairman of the BPVA and Chief Executive Officer of National Energy Card commented: “Building a strong, loyal relationship between the industry and the consumer is vital to the future success of the Renewable Energy sector and the National Energy Card will allow the industry to foster this relationship. One of the most significant marketing revolutions of the past thirty years has been the development of loyalty management tools and techniques to derive greater value from every transaction and map consumer buying behavior. This means that the relationship with the customer no longer ends when the sale is complete.”

In practice the loyalty programme will allow car holders to earn e-points when purchasing renewable and energy efficient products from one of the partner companies. National Energy Cards holders can then visit the online Energy Shop at www.nationalenergycard.com, where they can redeem e-points for future purchases.  

The BPVA will be piloting the innovative National Energy Card programme in the solar PV sector initially before expanding the service to cover other renewables such as ground source heat pumps and electric vehicles.

The solar association’s National Energy Card is backed by a fund in the region of £100 million, which will allow card holders access to a 100 percent loan to cover the cost of any solar PV installation with an interest of 6.5 to 8 percent. Again, the BPVA is looking to roll-out the loan offering to other renewables in the future.  

The National Energy Card will also be made available to businesses as well as consumers. Commercial clients will charged an annual fee of £10 which will directly be donated to the loyalty programme’s newly-launched ‘Power Africa’ project. The project hopes to raise some £10 million to help invest in the development of solar PV and other renewable projects in Africa.

The BPVA believes that the National Energy Card offers participating partners an invaluable marketing tool that will have the potential to deliver access to millions of engaged card-carrying customers as well as providing an important mechanism to sell their products and services through its Online Energy Shop.

The National Energy Card will be launched first in the UK in Q4-2012, followed by Germany, Netherlands, Italy and the USA in 2013.

To find out more information about the BPVA’s new National Energy Card loyalty programme, visit the BPVA at booth A30 at this year’s Solar Power UK 2012 which runs from October 2-4.