ASHRAE Journal - February 2012 - 73

demand response from commercial and industrial 250 applications to individual residences might mean How much does it cost to run your clothes for home appliances. washer each year? $195 200 In 2006, for example, Whirlpool Corporation $180 $171 did a demonstration project in conjunction with 150 the Paciﬁc Northwest National Laboratory that $132 showed that a smart dryer could detect, without human intervention, frequency variation on 100 a utility grid that would presage a power out$47 age, and virtually instantaneously, interrupt the $38 50 6,500 W dryer heating elements for up to 10 minutes, while keeping the clothes tumbling 0 2009 ENERGY 2009 WHR 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s and unwrinkled. This was an important capabilSTAR Qualified Tier III Clothes Washer Clothes ity because critical peak events on the grid that Washer are associated with power outages are typically short in duration—10 minutes could mean a lot 100 How much does it cost to run your dishto the grid, but matter little to the consumer. washer each year? Absent readily accessible demand response, to $79 80 ensure the reliability of the system, utilities must $66 maintain substantial power generation even when 60 it is not needed as a “spinning reserve” that can $50 be brought immediately online if the aging grid 40 hiccups. $32 If new demand response capable appliances could be developed that reduce peak demand 20 and could also substitute for more expensive and wasted spinning reserves, the societal beneﬁts 0 2009 ENERGY 1980s 1990s 2000s of this capability could exceed the value of an STAR Qualified Dishwasher incremental improvement of the efﬁciency of an individual product in a home. Importantly, and strategically for the home apHow much does it cost to run your 300 pliance industry, creating this new more socially refrigerator each year? $259 250 valuable capability in its products also presented a better long-term business proposition than the 200 expensive pursuit of taking out the last watt of $163 energy from already efﬁcient products. After 150 the latest round of energy standards are in ef$97 fect and the ENERGY STAR levels associated 100 $66 with those products are put in place, in some $48 50 $44 products the incremental energy eff iciency improvements at the margins save consumers 0 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s only pennies per month. Even before the newly 2009 ENERGY 2009 WHR STAR Qualified 30% agreed standards and ENERGY STAR levels Refrigerator Refrigerator go into effect, Figure 2 illustrates the declining consumer cost savings at the highest efﬁciency Figure 2: Consumer cost savings decline at the highest efficiency levels. The levels. Although it varies by product for manu- cost of achieving bleeding edge efficiencies can be exorbitant. facturers, the cost of achieving bleeding edge efﬁciencies can be exorbitant. super-efﬁcient clothes washer, have taken to throwing in Performance compromises are already beginning to be seen some extra water or overdosing the product with detergent. in some super-efﬁcient dishwashers and clothes washers, which are leading to some understandable and, in some cases, bizarre Smart Appliances and Standards Negotiations consumer compensatory behavior. Some consumers who ﬁnd food Paciﬁc Northwest National Laboratory assisted the deposits on dishes are aggressively pre-rinsing dishes, thereby home appliance industry in providing objective analysis using much more water than any of today’s minimally qualifying of the relative value of demand response as compared to appliances. Other consumers, seeing no visible water in their standalone product efﬁciency. PNNL’s analysis was relied

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Electricity Costs ($)

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Electricity Costs ($)

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February 2012

Electricity Costs ($)

ASHRAE Journal

73
ASHRAE Journal - February 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of ASHRAE Journal - February 2012
