High Efficiency Products

This post originally appeared on Switchboard, a blog by NRDC.

Industry and energy efficiency advocates have come to a major agreement, officially approved today, on updated efficiency standards for commercial air conditioners and furnaces that, once adopted, will lead to huge energy and dollar savings for more than half of the nation's nonresidential buildings.

We are back at it after LightFair International in New York City last week – what a show! This year marked a new frontier for the DesignLights Consortium with our own booth at the most future-focused conference and tradeshow in the lighting industry. With high traffic at our booth, we saw many familiar faces, made new connections and encountered some of the most innovative technologies the field has to offer.

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 the world, instilling a heightened awareness of energy reliability and a towering demand for homes equipped with HEMS.

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 indicating that the LED invasion is beginning to gain some ground.

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.