Several American manufacturers of residential central air conditioners, furnaces, and heat pumps and the nation’s foremost energy efficiency advocacy organizations have taken into their own hands the work of defining consensus-based efficiency standards for residential HVAC equipment. Recently, the manufacturers and energy organizations signed an agreement establishing regionally-based efficiency standards that are intended to replace current national standards.
This action takes the burden off the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), which is scheduled to begin the process for updating national standards for air conditioning soon—a process that can take up to five years. These new standards will be submitted to Congress for inclusion in the energy legislation currently being considered.
“If that does happen—and we fully expect it to—we’d expect rules from DOE setting these standards as law,” says Francis Dietz, vice president of public affairs for the Air Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI), one of the participating efficiency organizations.
Along with AHRI, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), the Alliance to Save Energy (Alliance), the Appliance Standards Awareness Project (ASAP), the California Energy Commission (CEC), and the Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NWPCC) joined with manufacturers Trane, Rheem, Carrier, Bard, Mitsubishi, Johnson Controls, Goodman, and Lennox to develop a plan that balances the need for a uniform marketplace with the desire for state and regional flexibility.
“The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 has a provision that lets DOE set the standard, but if stakeholders get together and present [DOE] with a consensus, they’re empowered to consider the recommendations,” says Harvey Sachs, Senior Fellow at ACEEE’s Buildings Program. “We think DOE will accept that guidance; if nothing else, it saves them an enormous amount of money and time that goes into rulemaking.”
Recognizing that heating and cooling needs vary depending on regional climate conditions, the “Air Conditioner, Furnace, and Heat Pump Efficiency Standards Agreement” divides the United States into three climate regions—North, South, and Southwest—and etablishes different efficiency standards in each, for both retrofit and new construction. The North region comprises states with population-weighted heating degree days (HDD) equal to or greater than 5,000, while the South region is designated as those states with population-weighted HDD of less than 5,000. California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada make up the Southwest region.
Efficiency standards were set to ensure the highest cost-benefit—best performance and greatest return on investment—for the homeowner. For example, in the North region, where home heating is most costly, gas furnaces would be required to be at least 90 percent efficient, while the minimum standard for oil furnaces would be 83 percent efficiency. Conversely, in the South region, the standard for central air conditioners would be increased from the current 13 SEER to 14 SEER.
Under the plan, states would be able to set higher efficiency levels for heating and cooling equipment installed in new homes under the state building code, so long as builders can achieve the higher efficiency level through the building code performance path using heating and cooling equipment that meets the regional standard.
“This is the first time that we as an industry have tried to lay out a path for the future that involves the building codes instead of just looking at standards for efficiency,” notes Sachs. “The plan preserves through the performance path the ability to innovate, which is very important.”
According to the participating groups, the efficiency standards agreement would save 3.7 quadrillion Btu of energy nationwide—equal to all the energy consumed by 18 million households in one year—between now and 2030. By raising minimum efficiency of residential central air conditioning systems by roughly 8 percent and furnaces by about 13 percent, the new standards also would result in a 5 percent heating energy load reduction and a 6 percent cooling energy load by 2030.
If passed into law, the proposed efficiency standards would go into effect in 2013 for non-weatherized furnaces and in 2015 for air conditioners, heat pumps, and weatherized furnaces. The plan also establishes a timeline for future updates to the standards.
