Super-Efficient Home Appliances (SEHA) Initiative

Overview: The SEHA Initiative seeks to support the ENERGY STAR appliance program and to help CEE members in the U.S. and Canada to identify and promote super-efficient products above ENERGY STAR. To accomplish this goal, CEE has established relationships with DOE, EPA, and the ENERGY STAR program, as well as with appliance manufacturers and the appliance industry association, the Alliance of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM). CEE has also developed the Appliance Strategic Plan as a component of the Initiative in an effort to lay out in further detail CEE’s approach to transforming the appliance market.

For more detail, including information on savings potential by appliance, see the SEHA Initiative Description.

Background: In 1993, CEE began to promote super-efficient clothes washers through the CEE National Clothes Washer Initiative. Working with efficiency programs, public interest groups and government agencies, CEE formulated and endorsed a super-efficient clothes washer specification. In response to this collective effort, three major domestic appliance manufacturers began production on washers meeting the energy criteria.

Bolstered by the success of the National Clothes Washer Initiative and the emergence of the ENERGY STAR brand in 1995, CEE expanded its Clothes Washer Initiative to include refrigerators, dishwashers, and room air conditioners, thereby creating the Super-Efficient Home Appliances (SEHA) Initiative. A companion initiative to the ENERGY STAR appliance program, the SEHA Initiative was designed to promote highly efficient ENERGY STAR appliances, or those that met efficiency levels above the ENERGY STAR level. After 18 months of extensive research and industry outreach, CEE developed efficiency specifications for the appliances covered under the SEHA Initiative and launched it in June 1998.

Since the inception of the SEHA Initiative, CEE has expanded to include Canadian members in addition to those in the U.S. The SEHA Initiative has simultaneously expanded its scope to include the Canadian appliance market. In January 2007, the CEE merged the Residential Clothes Washer Initiative with the SEHA Initiative to bring all of its residential appliance efforts under one umbrella.

The residential appliances market: Based on data made available by Appliance magazine in 2005, appliances covered by the SEHA initiative (clothes washers, dishwashers, refrigerators and room air conditioners) accounted for 19.4 percent of total residential energy use. Over 2005, an estimated total of 38.7 millions units of SEHA-covered appliances were shipped in the U.S. Four major manufacturers – Whirlpool, GE, Electrolux and Maytag – produce 92 percent of appliances on the market, with Whirlpool producing the largest percentage (34%).

Initiative Goals: The SEHA Initiative has two primary goals. They are:

• To facilitate efficiency programs’ efforts to increase the sale and market share of super-efficient appliances; and,
• To complement the efforts of the ENERGY STAR program to increase sale and market share of ENERGY STAR-qualified appliances.

Participation: To be considered an Initiative participant, an energy or water efficiency program must:

1. Support the ENERGY STAR appliances program;
   
   AND
   
2. a. Provide incentives (e.g., rebates) for appliances (clothes washers, dishwashers, refrigerators and/or room air conditioners) meeting at least Tier 1 efficiency levels, as specified by CEE;
   
   OR
   
   b. Deploy a significant and focused educational/promotional program which identifies and promotes super-efficient appliances (clothes washers, dishwashers, refrigerators and/or room air conditioners) meeting at least Tier 1 efficiency levels, as specified by CEE;
   
   OR
   
   c. Implement both of the above (1 and 2).

Individual utilities are fully responsible for determining local program designs, duration, and funding levels. Utility programs might involve any of the following: direct marketing, retailer partnering, sales training, paid advertising, and financial incentives. CEE regularly compiles an Appliance Program Summary to communicate CEE member program details to key market players.

SEHA efficiency specifications:
Clothes washers
Refrigerators
Dishwashers
Room air conditioners

SEHA qualifying products lists:
Clothes washers
Dishwashers