CEE is in the process of revising its “Advanced Tier” for residential central air conditioning, with the goal of an official adoption by the Board of Directors in early 2007.
Currently, CEE’s highest tier for this equipment, Tier 2, has performance requirements of 15 SEER, 12.5 EER for split systems and 14 SEER, 12 EER for packaged equipment. These split system requirements have been in effect since 1995. CEE member rebate data and national model availability information suggests that a new Advanced Tier for split systems is feasible.
The proposed Advanced Tier for residential central air conditioners would require minimum levels of 16 SEER and 13 EER. The formal industry commenting period ended Oct. 18, but initial input was sought at the CEE Industry Partners meeting.
The specification, when finalized and approved, will be used as a basis for qualifying equipment in the CEE Directory of ARI-Verified HVAC Equipment.
“Our goal in developing this new tier is to identify and enable promotion of the most-efficient products available and also send a unified market signal defining equipment performance CEE members value,” said CEE Residential Program Manager John Taylor.
“Our research indicates that equipment meeting the proposed Advanced Tier requirements is already produced by several manufacturers and can be cost-effective with the aid of financial incentives.”
CEE’s HVAC Committee recognizes that equipment with this level of efficiency doesn’t have significant market penetration yet, but many CEE members want to provide incentive for consumers considering a purchase of the most efficient equipment available today.
Manufacturer input is critical in developing a robust specification. While manufacturers acknowledged CEE’s concern with peak demand reduction, they said that efficiency ratings during the hottest days (e.g, EER at 95 degrees Fahrenheit) are approaching theoretical limits, so other options – such as equipment enabled for demand response and load control – should also being explored.
Jim Crawford of Trane noted that technologies allowing SEER to increase may not be accompanied by increases in EER. The cost of installing some load control devices, however, is likely to be much less than the cost of utilities adding new power generation.
Manufacturers also suggested that it was important to ensure that any CEE specification have qualifying systems available at a range of capacities. The Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute made a commitment to provide CEE with national model availability data at different equipment sizes.
CEE’s Commercial HVAC Committee is also revising its advanced specification (page 10) and will be working with the Residential HVAC Committee to harmonize the two specifications when appropriate. Although a complete alignment is not feasible at this time (and may not be appropriate given the differences in the markets for this equipment), it will receive ongoing consideration.
Heat pumps
The Residential HVAC Committee is also developing a new Advanced Tier for air-source heat pumps. This process is more complex, however, because previous industry feedback has indicated that a tradeoff exists between the heating performance and cooling performance of this equipment.
Model availability data also suggest that the heat pump with the “most efficient” heating performance is not the same as the heat pump with the “most efficient” cooling performance (with the exception of some 2.5-ton “trophy” models). Therefore, CEE’s HVAC Committee is exploring the creation of two different heat pump specifications for heating-dominated and cooling-dominated climates.
“While we recognize a single, national specification for advanced heat pumps would be ideal, the committee believes the trade-off in performance and the effect climate has on performance require a serious look at regional specifications for heat pumps,” explained Taylor.
CEE will be working closely with industry to ensure any future regional specifications are based on the best available data and complement manufacturers’ efforts to cater to different segments of the market.
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