Manufacturers: Proposed DOE CRE Standards Could Impact Service Side

Keeping an eye on the horizon—with looming changes by the Department of Energy to commercial refrigeration equipment energy efficiency standards—NAFEM shared the results of a recent member survey in a Jan. 24 webinar.

About three dozen tuned in. The survey, which also relied on input from members of the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) as well as the National Automatic Merchandising Association (NAMA), responds to a June 2022 preview of the proposed guidelines, which are slated for approval this coming October. Among those preliminary guidelines, NAFEM says, industry stakeholders found some equipment design options to be costly, while others are simply “impractical,” says Charlie Souhrada, CFSP, NAFEM’s vice president of regulatory and technical affairs.

In many cases, NAFEM says, manufacturers are already opting for the most energy efficient options on the market.

And, while manufacturers collectively voiced disapproval of proposed design options like vacuum insulated panels—which manufacturers say are not viable due to failures they’ve seen in the field—there were concerns on the service side, too.

With higher efficiency parts and components, manufacturers say, repair costs and maintenance increase, potentially exacerbating the technician shortage and, in turn, leading to longer equipment downtimes. Furthermore, they say, leaks of R-290 refrigerants are harder to detect, leading to more expensive fixes.

On those points and more, NAFEM gave the DOE plenty to unpack and consider, and the survey will be shared with the agency for review.

“We welcome greater engagement with DOE to maximize energy savings that are reasonable and practical, and look forward to working with you to achieve the best possible results moving forward,” says Souhrada, addressing DOE stakeholders on the call. “That said, equipment manufacturers need the certainty of a reasonably balanced outcome from DOE’s future rulemaking to ensure that equipment can be designed so it can be manufactured, installed and used to meet the critical need of food preservation and satisfy our customers’ expectations.”