Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Air-Cooled Commercial Package Air Conditioners and Heat Pumps

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 431</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EERE-2022-BT-STD-0015]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1904-AF34</RIN> <SUBJECT>Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Air-Cooled Commercial Package Air Conditioners and Heat Pumps</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Direct final rule; confirmation of effective and compliance dates. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The U.S. Department of Energy (“DOE”) published a direct final rule to establish amended energy conservation standards for air-cooled commercial package air conditioners and heat pumps with a rated cooling capacity greater than or equal to 65,000 Btu/h in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on May 20, 2024. DOE has determined that the comments received in response to the direct final rule do not provide a reasonable basis for withdrawing the direct final rule. Therefore, DOE provides this document confirming the effective and compliance dates of those standards. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The effective date of September 17, 2024, for the direct final rule published on May 20, 2024, (89 FR 44052) is confirmed. Compliance with the standards established in the direct final rule will be required on and after January 1, 2029. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The docket for this rulemaking, which includes <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notices, public meeting attendee lists and transcripts, comments, and other supporting documents/materials, is available for review at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> All documents in the docket are listed in the <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> index. However, not all documents listed in the index may be publicly available, such as information that is exempt from public disclosure. The docket web page can be found at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov/docket/EERE-2022-BT-STD-0015.</E> The docket webpage contains instructions on how to access all documents, including public comments, in the docket. For further information on how to submit a comment or review other public comments and the docket, contact the Appliance and Equipment Standards Program staff at (202) 287-1445 or by email: <E T="03">ApplianceStandardsQuestions@ee.doe.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Dr. Pradeep Prathibha, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Building Technologies Office, EE-5B, 1000 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20585-0121. Telephone: (240) 255-0630. Email: <E T="03">ApplianceStandardsQuestions@ee.doe.gov.</E> Mr. Eric Stas, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of the General Counsel, GC-33, 1000 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20585-0121. Telephone: (202) 586-4798. Email: <E T="03">Eric.Stas@hq.doe.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Authority</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Air-Cooled Commercial Unitary Air Conditioners and Heat Pumps Direct Final Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Comments on the Direct Final Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. General Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Certification</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Impact of Any Lessening of Competition</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Conclusion</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Authority</HD> The Energy Policy and Conservation Act, Public Law 94-163, as amended (“EPCA”), <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> authorizes DOE to issue a direct final rule establishing an energy conservation standard for covered equipment on receipt of a statement submitted jointly by interested persons that are fairly representative of relevant points of view (including representatives of manufacturers of covered equipment, States, and efficiency advocates), as determined by the Secretary of Energy (“Secretary”), that contains recommendations with respect to an energy or water conservation standard that are in accordance with the provisions of 42 U.S.C. 6295(o) or 42 U.S.C. 6313(a)(6)(B), as applicable. (42 U.S.C. 6316(b)(1); 42 U.S.C. 6295(p)(4)) <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  All references to EPCA in this document refer to the statute as amended through the Energy Act of 2020, Public Law 116-260 (Dec. 27, 2020), which reflect the last statutory amendments that impact Parts A and A-1 of EPCA. </FTNT> The direct final rule must be published simultaneously with a notice of proposed rulemaking (“NOPR”) that proposes an energy or water conservation standard that is identical to the standard established in the direct final rule, and DOE must provide a public comment period of at least 110 days on this proposal. (42 U.S.C. 6316(b)(1); 42 U.S.C. 6295(p)(4)(A)-(B)) Not later than 120 days after issuance of the direct final rule, DOE shall withdraw the direct final rule if: (1) DOE receives one or more adverse public comments relating to the direct final rule or any alternative joint recommendation; and (2) based on the rulemaking record relating to the direct final rule, DOE determines that such adverse public comments or alternative joint recommendation may provide a reasonable basis for withdrawing the direct final rule. (42 U.S.C. 6316(b)(1); 42 U.S.C. 6295(p)(4)(C)) If DOE makes such a determination, DOE must proceed with the NOPR published simultaneously with the direct final rule and publish in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> the reasons why the direct final rule was withdrawn. ( <E T="03">Id.</E> ) After review of comments received, DOE has determined that it did not receive any adverse comments providing a basis for withdrawal described above for the direct final rule that is the subject of this document. As such, DOE did not withdraw this direct final rule and allowed it to become effective. Although not required under EPCA, where DOE does not withdraw a direct final rule, DOE customarily publishes a summary of the comments received during the 110-day comment period and its responses to those comments. This document contains such a summary, as well as DOE's responses to the comments. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Air-Cooled Commercial Unitary Air Conditioners and Heat Pumps Direct Final Rule</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Background</HD> Small, large, and very large commercial package air conditioning and heating equipment are covered equipment under EPCA. (42 U.S.C. 6311(1)(B)-(D)) Such equipment includes as equipment categories air-cooled commercial unitary air conditioners with a rated cooling capacity greater than or equal to 65,000 Btu/h and less than 760,000 Btu/h (“ACUACs”) and air-cooled commercial unitary heat pumps with a rated cooling capacity greater than or equal to 65,000 Btu/h and less than 760,000 Btu/h (“ACUHPs”) (excluding double-duct air conditioners and heat pumps), which are the subject of this rulemaking. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  While ACUACs and ACUHPs with rated cooling capacity less than 65,000 Btu/h are included in the broader category of commercial unitary air conditioners and heat pumps (“CUACs and CUHPs”), they are not addressed in this rulemaking. The standards for ACUACs and ACUHPs with rated cooling capacity less than 65,000 Btu/h have been addressed in a separate rulemaking ( <E T="03">see</E> Docket No. EERE-2022-BT-STD-0008). Additionally, while double-duct air conditioners and heat pumps are air-cooled commercial package air conditioning and heating equipment, they are not addressed in this rulemaking. Double-duct systems will be addressed in a separate rulemaking process. Accordingly, all references within this direct final rule to ACUACs and ACUHPs exclude equipment with rated cooling capacity less than 65,000 Btu/h and double-duct systems. </FTNT> In a direct final rule published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on January 15, 2016 (“January 2016 Direct Final Rule”), DOE prescribed the current energy conservation standards for ACUACs and ACUHPs manufactured on and after January 1, 2023. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> 81 FR 2420. These standards are set forth in DOE's regulations at title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (“CFR”) section 431.97(b). <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  The January 2016 Direct Final Rule adopted a two-tiered standard approach that applied a first tier of minimum efficiency levels for compliance on January 1, 2018, and a second tier of higher minimum efficiency levels for compliance on January 1, 2023. 81 FR 2420, 2489-2490, 2531 (Jan. 15, 2016). </FTNT> DOE's current energy conservation standards are expressed in terms of integrated energy efficiency ratio (“IEER”) for the cooling efficiency of ACUACs and ACUHPs, and in terms of coefficient of performance (“COP”) for the heating efficiency of ACUHPs. ( <E T="03">See</E> 10 CFR 431.97(b)) To demonstrate compliance with the current energy conservation standards, manufacturers must use the test procedure provided at 10 CFR part 431, subpart F, appendix A (“appendix A”), <E T="03">Uniform Test Method for the Measurement of Energy Consumption of Commercial Package Air Conditioning and Heating Equipment (Excluding Air-Cooled Equipment With a Cooling Capacity Less Than 65,000 Btu/h).</E> Since publication of the January 2016 Direct Final Rule, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (“ASHRAE”) published an updated version of ASHRAE Standard 90.1 (“ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2016”), which updated the minimum efficiency levels for ACUACs and ACUHPs to align with the first tier of minimum efficiencies adopted by DOE in the January 2016 Direct Final Rule (which had a compliance date of January 1, 2018). ASHRAE subsequently published another updated version of ASHRAE Standard 90.1 (“ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2019”), which updated the mini ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 27k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━