While you probably won’t find Rooftop Units trending on Twitter anytime soon, you will continue to find them on roofs of commercial buildings working tirelessly to keep you cool. And, like many of their HVAC counterparts, rooftop units are due for an energy efficiency overhaul.

In the world of energy efficiency, clothes dryers were the kids picked last during recess basketball games, overlooked for more promising appliances. As refrigerators, clothes washers, and dishwashers became incrementally more efficient over time, clothes dryers were left to their energy squandering ways.

Last we left Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS), they were overseas playing a major role as Energy Continuity Systems (ECS) in Japan after the devastating Fukushima disaster disabled forty-eight of Japan’s fifty nuclear reactors. Rolling blackouts and sporadic outages plagued the Land of the Rising Sun years after the monstrous earthquake rocked...

While the oil bills from heating your home are still fresh in your mind.  While you still seethe from the snow and slush, I want to offer a suggestion.

Air-Source Heat Pumps.

We’ve been singing it from the rooftops since the release of the 2015 Residential Lighting Strategy back in December: the residential lighting market will undergo a massive transformation as long as programs and supporting standards continue to propel it towards efficiency.

Thanks to Jake Marin (HVAC Program Manager) and Efficiency Vermont for contributing this especially relevant piece on burgeoning heat pump products. Heat pump technologies transfer heat much more efficiently than traditional methods and are quickly becoming a financially viable alternative. 

LEDs are steadily moving to the forefront of retail shelves as energy efficiency programs continue to financially support their widespread adoption. With the cheapest ENERGY STAR certified LEDs costing about $10 each, efficiency program rebates are necessary if prices are to come close to other alternatives. Strong signals, however, are...

Residential lighting has been one of the longest standing measures in efficiency program portfolios. With such a long history, you may be surprised to hear that it’s a rapidly-evolving space with significant advancements, especially in the past several years.

How do you do your laundry? Generally, people do it begrudgingly, but when NEEP thinks about laundry we see an opportunity. Especially when policies for clothes dryers lag behind other household appliances, there could be potentially large energy, financial, and carbon emission savings. Coupled with the fact that about 80% American households have dryers, those individual appliances can really add up.

The ability of an Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP) to heat homes in the dead of winter may seem too good to be true. This technology is no figment of your imagination - it has us quite excited because it promises to deliver heat in subzero weather. ASHPs warm our houses by extracting heat from the outdoor air. But, if you live in a cold climate, it’s hard to extract warmth from temperatures near or below freezing.