CleanPlay has launched its energy-saving app on PlayStation 5, helping to raise renewable energy consciousness among players.

Founded by games industry pioneers David Helgason and Richard Hilleman, CleanPlay is a new subscription platform that matches the average electricity used by gaming consoles with verified clean energy solutions for as little as $1.99 a month. CleanPlay gamifies investment in clean energy projects by rewarding players for participating. You can download it on PS5 here.

In an initial partnership with leading game publisher 2K, CleanPlay subscribers will earn exclusive in-game rewards, including XP boosts, virtual currency and special content in PGA TOUR 2K and TopSpin 2K25.

“We’re not selling broccoli,” said Rich Hilleman, former EA chief creative officer and cofounder of CleanPlay, in an interview with GamesBeat. “We’re selling ice cream. We’re not the preaching business. We’ll do a little education, but we’ll do it in a fun way.”

Players in the U.S. can now download CleanPlay on PlayStation 5 and seamlessly select which U.S.-based clean energy projects they want to support, helping drive investment in wind, solar, geothermal and other emerging energy technologies. Through Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs)—a widely recognized tool that supports more clean power production—CleanPlay is helping to make gaming a force for energy investment and grid modernization.

“Energy is the backbone of gaming and technology,” says David Helgason, chairman of CleanPlay and founder of Unity Technologies, in a statement. “With CleanPlay, we’re making it easier than ever for players to support clean energy projects while doing what they love. Every CleanPlay subscription helps signal demand for energy solutions that strengthen the grid. We’re making this process simple and engaging, so players everywhere can be part of the solution.”

Some measures show that player energy consumption accounts for approximately 80% of console emissions, making it the most significant contributor to the games industry’s carbon footprint. While CleanPlay cannot erase emissions resulting from each player’s personal energy use, the impact is real—
each subscription drives up demand for clean energy, building toward a future where clean power is the
standard.

“Customers really can’t go buy these things because the volume is too high. But if we can start to aggregate customers in any way, it’s an interesting arbitrage from a market that doesn’t actually have a consumer outlet today,” Hilleman said. “What we’re discovering is that there are others that want to buy in smaller quantities than are currently available in this market. And so what it looks like is that we can market this asset and that there are multiple markets we could serve with it, something we didn’t actually know or perceive.”

Hilleman said that wind farms in places like Texas are going offline because they can’t afford to pay the maintenance to keep the place online. That’s an opportunity for CleanPlay, given the ongoing withdrawal of public funding for such wind farms.

“It is a unique opportunity for us as a gaming community to come in and and essentially save them,” Hilleman said. “We believe we can take this opportunity and turn it into dozens of choices for the consumers to make. We want projects that would not otherwise land in the grid. In this case, the wind farm goes back onto the grid and it’s renewable energy.”

Today’s launch is just the beginning of an ongoing collaboration. As CleanPlay continues to grow, players can expect more exclusive in-game content, expanded partnerships, and new ways to engage with clean energy solutions. CleanPlay is exploring ways to scale its clean energy initiatives, including supporting new projects through Virtual Power Purchase Agreements (VPPAs)—a mechanism for directly financing renewable energy development. Looking ahead, CleanPlay envisions a future where a Virtual Power
Plant (VPP) enables the gaming community to help accelerate clean energy adoption at scale.

“We believe gaming is one of the most powerful platforms to drive real-world change,” said Hilleman. “Partnering with 2K, a leader in the industry, allows us to support clean energy with gaming in a way that’s fun, accessible and rewarding for players.”

“At 2K, we’re always striving to innovate and create deeper, more engaging experiences for our players,”
said 2K senior director of product Abhi Shah, in a statement. “With CleanPlay, we can offer them a choice to make a real-world impact and blend new opportunities for energy innovation with the immersive worlds they love.”

Players can get their first two months of CleanPlay free with an annual subscription for just $19.99 or opt for a monthly plan starting at just $1.99. Each subscription provides players with in-game rewards
and community membership.

Hilleman said the founders decided to make CleanPlay into a for-profit company because they didn’t want to constantly go back to fundraise from the public.

With 2K, the other side of the incentive comes in for players, as they can get free items in games if they subscribe to CleanPlay. Players can get recognition in the form of trophies. Meanwhile, Hilleman said he would like to show people how to put their game consoles on Eco mode, which isn’t easy to do.

“If you can successfully click all the buttons that you would need to do it, I can deliver you a trophy that says you know how to do it for Sony,” he said.

Feedback

Hilleman said he is pleased with the feedback and enthusiasm so far.

“Our plan is to incrementally increase our volume of customers in a predictable way for us,” said Hilleman. “We’ll start trying to acquire users, but I would say that the early signals are better than I would have imagined.”

Based on a post that reached 3,600 impressions, more than 1,000 people downloaded an app and opened it,” Hilleman said. “That was surprising.”

More results are coming in from tests on PlayStation.

“It shows the power of the PlayStation ecosystem,” Hilleman said.

The company has a handful of people, including Marina Soros, who helps select clean energy solutions, and Ryan Cameron. CleanPlay is operating very lean.

“As we talk to other publishers and platform holders, the amount of interest that they have in those mitigation products is surprising, meaning they have other needs for them in other parts of their business, and that is not what we expected to hear in those cases,” Hilleman said. “Not only are they interested in us talking to their customers, but they want to buy some too.”

“The gaming industry is the largest collection of human beings on the planet, and it appears to us that they’re about to stand on their own two feet, start to do some things that we haven’t done in the past,” said Hilleman.

Ryan Cameron at CleanPlay said in an interview, “Is CleanPlay a product for gamers that care about the environment, or for gamers that just care.”

“I think there’s just like a huge shift happening right now in the clean energy world. And so the idea that things will no longer come directly from EPA funding or from like these big sources, but rather more like groundswell ideas of people who actually care. That’s really nice,” said Marina Psaros, strategic adviser for energy innovation. “A whole bunch of gamers care.”