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Heat Pump Water Heaters

Driving the market through new specs

Sixty-four percent of Northwest homes have electric water heaters. By influencing and increasing availability of high-efficiency heat pump water heaters (HPWHs) specifically designed for the Northern climate, the region could save nearly 500 aMW by 2029, the equivalent to powering 381,500 homes each year.

In 2011, NEEA and its partners updated the Northern Climate Specification, which provides added energy efficiency guidance to manufacturers developing HPWHs. After testing numerous products many are now compliant to the updated spec. See http://neea.org/northernclimatespec

Through ongoing lab testing, manufacturer engagement, field testing and utility coordination, NEEA’s long-range goal is to influence the passage of a federal standard requiring HPWHs for all electric storage tanks greater than 40 gallons in size, along with guiding testing and rating methods which account for the influence of climate on performance.

  • Residential Building Stock Assessment- Manufactured Homes Characteristics and Energy Use
    This report is the second in a series of reports summarizing the results of the Residential Building Stock Assessment (RBSA). This second report summarizes the characteristics observed onsite and energy use data for the manufactured home component of the RBSA. The scope and magnitude of this representative field study exceeds any previous studies conducted in the Northwest. The final RBSA sample includes households representing 99 utilities: 89 public utilities, seven investor-owned utilities, and three natural gas-only utilities. Of the 99 utilities represented in the overall RBSA study, 52 were represented in the manufactured home sample. The report presents interesting findings on manufactured home characteristics. Manufactured home characteristics reflect a high degree of uniformity across the four states. This uniformity stems from preemptive federal standards and the region’s energy efficiency programs, which use common standards across all factories. While the overall conductive heat loss rates across all vintages of homes show minor differences among the states and climates, the overall heat loss by vintage suggest considerable differences between homes built to federal standards and homes built to regional utility program specifications. Homes built to federal standards average about twice the heat loss and twice the infiltration rate of homes built under utility programs. Other key highlights of the report indicate that: About 70% of manufactured homes use electricity as their primary fuel for space heating, while approximately 11% of homes use gas as their primary heating fuel, approximately 90% of Domestic Hot Water (DHW) tanks are electrically operated, the average number of lamps per home is 35 and the mean saturation of CFLs throughout manufactured homes in the region is about 28% of all lamps, on average manufactured homes have about 1.3 refrigerators and 58% of those refrigerators were manufactured since 2000. Information gleaned from this report can help to establish a bench mark of residential building stock characteristics in the Northwest. Additionally, the results of this study will serve as a basis for planning, forecasting, and program development initiatives by various entities in the region. *Please note when printing we recommend color for better representation of the graphs.
    PDF, 3.42 MB
  • Northern Climate Specification
    PDF, 712.48 KB
  • 2011 Water Heater Market Update, Appendices
    Appendices to 2011 Water Heater Market Update.
    PDF, 3.95 MB

Related Specifications

Northern Climate Specification

This specification provides guidance to manufacturers who are interested in developing products that not only meet ENERGY STAR criteria but are able to provide high levels of consumer satisfaction and energy performance in cooler, northern climates.

View the current specification here

Get more information

NEEA Team Lead

Jill Reynolds

Initiative Manager