Commercial HVAC
NEEP sponsors throughout the region continued to promote packaged HVAC equipment meeting CEE Tier 2 efficiency specifications, through sub-regional programs such as Cool Choice, New York Smart Equipment Choices and others. They also promoted optional controls for economizers and for demand controlled ventilation.
During the quarter, the HVAC group met in Burlington, Vermont for a peer exchange and program planning session, and participated in an information panel on Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) and Multi-Split systems. The panel included experts on equipment sales, systems design and utility programs who presented perspectives on this growing technology for heating and cooling. Installation is simple since there are only pipes, not ducts. And systems are inherently efficient since they can heat and cool simultaneously. Participants raised questions and identified issues for program planning.
There will soon be two upstream HVAC programs in the region, focusing promotion and incentives toward HVAC equipment distributors rather than installers and customers. In 2008 Efficiency Vermont completed its pioneering effort in this regard and decided to continue with a full upstream program for 2009. NYSERDA has instructed the contractor in their ‘Products Program’ to use the regional tool kit and build in an upstream element to their 2010 program. Others are watching these success stories, for future planning.
On the national scene the Consortium for Energy Efficiency’s HVAC committee is working with ENERGY STAR to coordinate HVAC specifications. This will simplify program operation and communications. The same group is working to outline Advanced Rooftop Unit (ARTU) definitions for use in member programs. This will take HVAC energy efficiency beyond EER tiers. Progress is being made toward creating a scoring system for features of the ARTU, to sum up and grade units by efficiency and performance.
Data Centers
NEEP recently began work on a white paper on energy efficiency in data centers. The paper will present work currently going forward outside the region, promoting software solutions and building conditioning approaches, and which of these we can use here in the Northeast. Look for results in the third quarter.
Commercial Lighting
The Commercial Lighting group has had a very busy winter and spring, working mainly on its Solid State Lighting (SSL) products list project and its collaboration with the Department of Energy (DOE)on its Commercial Lighting Solutions (CLS) project.
The regional group met with DOE’s CLS team in May to plan and develop lighting design program components for 2010. CLS completed and launched the Retail Buildings Solutions web tool at Lightfair. They are currently working on their next sector: office space lighting. The NEEP group will prepare a training curriculum for program technicians to help them use the design tools and to train lighting design professionals in the marketing and use or the tool.
Also, NEEP is developing a regional commercial lighting strategy for the region. Look for more on this in the fall.
Solid State Lighting
The SSL Regional Qualified Products List has turned out to be timely and popular. It now looks like there will be as many as 24 project sponsors including NEEP initiative sponsors, sister regional energy efficiency organizations and individual electric utilities from the west coast. The group hired Lighting Research Center (LRC) to manage the list, accept and process applications from manufacturers and post the list for sponsors to use in their programs. The group is working closely with DOE and ENERGY STAR so that the regional list will help fill in voids in the ENERGY STAR list when more categories open up. A pilot run of the regional list process is going on in June; NEEP expects the list to become available by August.
ENERGY STAR revised its SSL products list at the end of May. Their lists now show 24 Commercial products and 28 residential ones. These are mainly from Cooper, Cree, Juno, Kichler and EML. Get more information on DOE’s SSL efforts on their website: DOE SSL ENERGY STAR.
