NEEP News
HVAC Manufacturers, Efficiency Advocates Ink Historic Efficiency Standards Agreement
Agreement calls for regional efficiency standards to replace national standards and recommends more stringent building code provisions for new construction.
David Greenfield -- Control Engineering, 10/21/2009
The nation's leading manufacturers of residential central air conditioners, furnaces, and heat pumps have signed a voluntary agreement with the nation's leading energy-efficiency advocacy organizations supporting new federal standards for their products, according to the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI). For the first time, the agreement calls for regional efficiency standards to replace a quarter century of national standards, and it also recommends more stringent building code provisions for new construction.
AHRI executives, along with the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, the Alliance to Save Energy, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships, the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, the California Energy Commission, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, and more than a dozen individual furnace and air conditioner manufacturers signed the agreement following months of negotiations.
The agreement sets different standard levels in three climate regions--North, South, and Southwest--recognizing that appropriate investments in heating and cooling efficiency depend on usage. Such regional standards are allowed under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. States are also allowed, under the agreement, to include even higher efficiency levels for heating and cooling systems in new homes. New houses can be built without physical restrictions that might hinder installation of highly efficient equipment, as there might be when replacing equipment in an existing home.
The new standards are projected to save U.S. consumers about $13 billion in today's dollars between 2013, when the new standards begin to take effect, and 2030 (taking into account the incremental cost of the more efficient equipment).
It is also estimated that, between now and 2030, the agreement will save 3.7 quadrillion Btu of energy nationwide, which is equivalent to all the energy consumed by approximately 18 million households in a single year.
The new standards would raise the minimum efficiency of residential central air conditioning systems by about 8% and furnaces by about 13% and would result in a 5% reduction of the total heating energy load and a 6% reduction of the total cooling energy load in 2030.
These energy savings will result in annual greenhouse gas emission reductions of 23 million metric tons of CO2 in 2030, an amount equal to that produced by approximately 4 million cars every year.
The signatories agreed to submit their agreement jointly as a legislative proposal to Congress for inclusion in the energy legislation currently under consideration. The groups will also recommend that the Department of Energy promulgate a rule adopting the agreed-upon regions and efficiency standards.
