Appliance Design - February 2008 - (Page 8) NEwS watch NEw ENErGy Law tarGEtS appLIaNcE EffIcIENcy n December, President Bush signed into law the “Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007,” a comprehensive energy bill that includes provisions that apply to home appliances, furnaces and boilers, outdoor power equipment and other segments of the appliance industry. Joe Mattingly, vice president of the Gas Appliance Manufacturers Association,* said that Title III of the bill, which applies to appliances, includes key provision for GAMA members. In this section, standards for residential gas, oil and electric boilers made after Sept. 1, 2012, were enacted. The levels were derived through a consensus agreement with energy advocacy groups. However, GAMA opposes an exception from the standards for boilers that are manufactured to operate without any need for electricity (the so-called Amish boiler exception). The bill also sets dates for publishing final efficiency rules and mandates frequent reexamination of test procedures to determine if they need to be amended. It requires the DOE to publish a final rule regarding furnace fans by Dec. 31, 2013. It also sets a March 31, 2020, deadline for setting test procedures that fully account for energy consumption of a product in standby and off modes. The bill gives the Department of Energy (DOE) the authority to establish regional standards for residential furnaces or central air conditioning equipment. The DOE can establish up to three U.S. regions for cooling and two regions for heating. The DOE must demonstrate that the regional standards will achieve substantially greater savings than that of a single national standard, be technologically feasible and economically justified, and result in no significant burden 8 applianceDESIGN February 2008 I on manufacturing, marketing, distribution, sale or servicing of a covered product on a national basis. Stephen R. Yurek, president of the AirConditioning and Refrigeration Institute,* said the bill also provides incentives and standards for both commercial and residential users to upgrade their heating and cooling equipment to more efficient choices. The bill also enacts into law a consensus agreement between ARI and the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) that for the first time establishes federal standards for walk-in refrigerators and freezers, effective Jan. 1, 2009. Yurek said the legislation corrects a technical error in the 2005 energy bill by allowing implementation of federal standards raising the efficiency level for threephase, less-than-65,000 BTU to 13 SEER, and implementing the ASHRAE 90.1 standard for single-package vertical units; both by June 15, 2008. Kent Peterson, president of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, said that the association is pleased with the focus on energy efficiency as a significant resource in the nation’s efforts to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. “Our members are poised to meet the challenges established for the commercial building sector through such programs as the Commercial Buildings Initiative, energy efficiency performance standards for federal buildings, and public-private partnerships formed under the new Department of Energy Office of Commercial High-Performance Green Buildings.” He pointed to the establishment of research and development programs in “daylighting and solar technologies” that will help boost efforts to design and build net-zero-energy buildings. Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants would assist communities in meeting their energy efficiency goals. “Unfortunately,” he said, “some of the other incentives to encourage efficiency were not included in the final bill including the Commercial Building Tax Deduction. The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers’ president, Joseph M. McGuire, said the enacted legislation codifies an agreement between industry and energy and water advocacy organizations to establish the strictest federal energy efficiency standards to date for residential clothes washers, and dishwashers and, for the first time ever, also sets national water limit requirements for these products. The law also sets energy standards for dehumidifiers and requires the DOE to consider revisions of current refrigerator energy efficiency standards. Also supporting the legislation is the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute (OPEI). The group said the bill requires the U.S. EPA to test new fuels and fuel additives before they are brought to market to ensure the new fuels won’t cause existing equipment to malfunction or cause injury, said Kris Kiser, OPEI Vice President of Public Affairs. The legislation mandates ramping up the production of ethanol use to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022, which is up from current annual production of 6 billion gallons a year. * Subsequent to this story, the Gas Appliance Manufacturers Association merged with the Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute, creating the AirConditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute. See story on page 10. < www.applianceDESIGN.com http://www.appliancedesign.com
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