Manufacturers of residential central air conditioners, furnaces, and heat pumps as well as energy-efficiency advocates jointly have recommended new federal standards for those products and new building code provisions for new construction. The collaboration could pave the way for quicker adoption of new standards by U.S. officials.
Their proposal calls for regional efficiency standards to replace a quarter-century of national standards and prescribes more stringent building code provisions. The plan would set different standard levels in three climate regions -- the North, South, and Southwest -- suggesting 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.
The proposal also would allow states 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. This new approach is designed to strike a balance between the desire for greater state and regional flexibility and the need for a uniform marketplace, and looks to the nation's long-term energy future by supporting the most efficient new systems when they are most cost-effective, according to plan developers.
Among the signatories to the proposal are representatives of the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI), the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, the Alliance to Save Energy (ASE), the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships, and the Appliance Standards Awareness Project.
The parties agreed to submit their plan jointly as a legislative proposal to Congress for inclusion in energy legislation currently undergoing consideration. The groups also will recommend that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) issue a rule adopting the agreed-upon regions and efficiency standards.
The proposal would amend the Energy Policy and Conservation Act to allow building codes to provide for building energy budgets and baseline building designs to include covered equipment having an efficiency greater than the federal minimum standard, up to specified levels, as long as at least one option is made available to meet the code through the use of covered equipment at the federally established minimum level. The plan would set new construction/major renovation standards for each region that states may incorporate into their building codes (see table below).
"DOE does not need congressional authority to implement the provisions in this agreement that establish higher efficiency levels for all air conditioners and furnaces sold," Jeffrey Harris, ASE's vice president for programs, told GBI. "In fact, EISA-2007 contained provisions for accelerating DOE rules where there is a consensus agreement like this. The second part, a higher efficiency level in residential building energy codes, would likely require Congressional action to incorporate the agreement into statute. The AHRI [proposal] envisions that the new Product Efficiency Standards would become effective May 2013 for (indoor) furnaces and January 2015 for ACs and outdoor ("weatherized") furnaces. A second DOE rulemaking for these products would take effect in 2019 for furnaces and 2022 for the other products. The new building code provisions, once enacted in law, would be effective January 2013 with updated code levels to be established by DOE rulemaking, to take effect in 2018."
"It's hard to predict the number of new buildings that could be affected [by the plan] since this depends not only on construction rates (typically 1.5-2 percent of the stock each year, but of course slower lately), but also on which states adopt the new code provisions for above-National Appliance Energy Conservation Act equipment efficiency, and which builders choose the option of equipment efficiency upgrades rather than efficiency improvements in other parts of the building. But both state code officials and some builders seem actively interested in using the option of equipment upgrades to meet increasingly energy code requirements in new homes -- so if I had to guess I wouldn't be surprised to see these provisions implemented in at least one-third of new homes (i.e., 30-50,000 homes) within a few years of adoption of the new energy codes that allow this option."
Reference: AHRI, ACEEE, Alliance to Save Energy
