Energy Conservation Program: Test Procedure for Central Air Conditioners and Heat Pumps

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 429</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EERE-2022-BT-TP-0028]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1904-AF49</RIN> <SUBJECT>Energy Conservation Program: Test Procedure for Central 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> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The U.S. Department of Energy (“DOE”) is finalizing a one-year delay of certain product-specific enforcement provisions related to the controls verification procedure established in a recently published final rule amending the test procedures for central air conditioners and heat pumps. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The effective date of this rule is September 9, 2025. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The docket, 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 those containing information that is exempt from public disclosure. A link to the docket web page can be found at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov/docket/EERE-2022-BT-TP-0028.</E> The docket web page contains instructions on how to access all documents, including public comments, in the docket. For further information on how to review 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> Ms. Julia Hegarty, 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: (202) 255-0630. Email: <E T="03">ApplianceStandardsQuestions@ee.doe.gov.</E> Mr. Pete Cochran, 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">peter.cochran@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 and Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Discussion</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Summary of Comments Received</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Comments Supporting the Proposed One-Year Delay of CVP Enforcement</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Comments Opposing the Proposed One-Year Delay of CVP Enforcement</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Other Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Conclusion</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Effective Date</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Procedural Issues and Regulatory Review</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Approval of the Office of the Secretary</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Authority and Background</HD> The Energy Policy and Conservation Act, Public Law 94-163, as amended (“EPCA”), <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> authorizes DOE to regulate the energy efficiency of a number of consumer products and certain industrial equipment. (42 U.S.C. 6291-6317, as codified) Title III, Part B of EPCA  <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> established the Energy Conservation Program for Consumer Products Other Than Automobiles, which sets forth a variety of provisions designed to improve energy efficiency. Central air conditioners (“CACs”) and central air conditioning heat pumps (“HPs”) (collectively, “CAC/HPs”) are included in the list of “covered products” for which DOE is authorized to establish and amend energy conservation standards and test procedures. (42 U.S.C. 6292 (a)(3)) DOE's currently applicable test procedure for CAC/HPs is prescribed at 10 CFR part 430, subpart B, appendix M1 (“appendix M1”). <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> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  For editorial reasons, upon codification in the U.S. Code, Part B was redesignated Part A. </FTNT> On January 7, 2025, DOE published a final rule amending the Federal test procedures for CAC/HPs (“January 2025 Final Rule”). 90 FR 1224. The January 2025 Final Rule amended the currently applicable test procedure at appendix M1 and also established a new test procedure at 10 CFR part 430, subpart B, appendix M2 (“appendix M2”), the use of which would be required beginning on the compliance date of any future amended standards for CAC/HPs based on the new efficiency metrics established in appendix M2. <E T="03">Id.</E> at 90 FR 1284. Additionally, the January 2025 Final Rule established enforcement provisions related to the use of a controls verification procedure (“CVP”), to be conducted per industry standards AHRI 210/240-2024 and AHRI 1600-2024 for the purposes of CAC/HP assessment and enforcement testing. <E T="03">Id.</E> at 90 FR 1224, 1255-1265. On January 20, 2025, President Trump issued the “Regulatory Freeze Pending Review” memorandum, which was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on January 25, 2025. 90 FR 8249. This Presidential action ordered all executive departments and agencies to consider postponing for 60 days the effective date of certain rules published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> for the purpose of reviewing any questions of fact, law, and policy that the rules may raise. Additionally, executive departments and agencies were to consider opening a comment period to allow interested parties to provide comments about issues of fact, law, and policy raised by the rules postponed under the memorandum. Consistent with the “Regulatory Freeze Pending Review” Presidential memorandum of January 20, 2025, DOE delayed the effective date of the January 2025 Final Rule to March 21, 2025 (“February 2025 delay of effective date”). 90 FR 9001, (February 5, 2025). DOE also sought comment on any further delay of the effective date, including the impacts of such delay, as well as comment on the legal, factual, or policy issues raised by the rule. <E T="03">Id.</E> Following the February 2025 delay of effective date, DOE delayed the effective date of the January 2025 Final Rule twice more, to allow time for further review of comments received. The first of these additional delays extended the effective date of the January 2025 Final Rule to May 20, 2025. 90 FR 13052 (March 30, 2025). The second of these additional delays extended the effective date of the January 2025 Final Rule to July 7, 2025. 90 FR 21389 (May 20, 2025). Neither of these additional delays nor the initial February 2025 delay of effective date affected the compliance date of the January 2025 Final Rule, which remains July 7, 2025. In response to the February 2025 delay of effective date, comments from interested parties advocating for a further delay in the effective date of the January 2025 Final Rule were largely limited to the CVP provisions established by the January 2025 Final Rule. Multiple commenters provided justification for further delaying the CVP enforcement provisions of the January 2025 Final Rule, with most commenters suggesting a one-year delay. DOE published a notice of proposed rulemaking (“NOPR”) on May 29, 2025 (“May 2025 NOPR”), in which DOE tentatively determined that a further delay in implementation of the CVP provisions is warranted and proposed to delay implementation of the CVP provisions at 10 CFR 429.134(k)(4) until July 7, 2026 ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> a one-year delay from the original compliance date). 90 FR 22671, 22674. DOE received comments in response to the May 2025 NOPR from the interested parties listed in Table I.1. <GPOTABLE COLS="4" OPTS="L2,nj,i1" CDEF="s50,r50,xs54,r50"> <TTITLE>Table I.1—List of Commenters With Written Submissions in Response to the May 2025 NOPR</TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Commenter(s)</CHED> <CHED H="1">Reference in this final rule</CHED> <CHED H="1">Comment No. in the docket</CHED> <CHED H="1">Commenter type</CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Air-Conditioning, Heating, & Refrigeration Institute</ENT> <ENT>AHRI</ENT> <ENT>72</ENT> <ENT>Trade Association.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Allstyle Coil Company</ENT> <ENT>Allstyle</ENT> <ENT>78</ENT> <ENT>Manufacturer.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Anonymous</ENT> <ENT>Anonymous</ENT> <ENT>63</ENT> <ENT>Individual.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Appliance Standards Awareness Project</ENT> <ENT>ASAP</ENT> <ENT>80</ENT> <ENT>Efficiency Advocacy Organization.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">AUX Air USA</ENT> <ENT>AUX Air</ENT> <ENT>67</ENT> <ENT>Manufacturer.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Bosch Home Comfort</ENT> <ENT>Bosch</ENT> <ENT>77</ENT> <ENT>Manufacturer.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">China WTO/TBT * National Notification & Enquiry Center</ENT> <ENT>P.R. China</ENT> <ENT>64 and 68</ENT> <ENT>Foreign Government.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Daikin Comfort Technologies North America, Inc</ENT> <ENT>Daikin</ENT> <ENT>81</ENT> <ENT>Manufacturer.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Daniel Simpson</ENT> <ENT>Simpson</ENT> <ENT>65</ENT> <ENT>Individual.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Fujitsu General America, Inc</ENT> <ENT>Fujitsu</ENT> <ENT>73</ENT> <ENT>Manufacturer.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">GE Appliances</ENT> <ENT>GE Appliances</ENT> <ENT>70</ENT> <ENT>Manufacturer.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Johnson Controls</ENT> <ENT>JCI</ENT> <ENT>79</ENT> <ENT>Manufacturer.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Lennox International</ENT> <ENT>Lennox</ENT> <ENT>74</ENT> <ENT>Manufactu ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 34k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━