Priming the Region for a Turning Point in Pump Efficiency
Following the U.S. Department of Energy’s (U.S. DOE’s) 2020 release of a new energy efficiency standard for commercial and industrial pumps, the alliance leveraged its data expertise, mid and upstream market relationships, and regionwide scale to support the Northwest’s compliance with the new regulations.
In 2025, these efforts achieved several milestones, including the launch of an improved, user-friendly pumps energy rating label, the market advancement of a promising new pumps technology, and the expansion of the alliance’s partnerships with manufacturers and manufacturer representatives to include organizations operating largely in Idaho, Montana, and rural Oregon and Washington. With NEEA’s Market Transformation process in action and pump efficiency more achievable for the region than ever, the alliance is poised to continue expanding its market support for this product into the agricultural sectors of all four Northwest states.
Making Pump Efficiency—and Economic Impact—Easy to Understand
Pumps are essential systems that circulate hot and cold water throughout commercial HVAC, industrial and agricultural operations, and municipal water systems, with efficiency and reliability playing a critical role for facility owners and operators. The new U.S. DOE standard raised baseline efficiency requirements for commercial and industrial pumps, reshaping how products are rated, selected and specified across the market. With the new standard in effect, the alliance set to work empowering the region with education and workforce development to help the market thrive in the new era of pumps efficiency.
NEEA staff played a key advisory role in the federal standards approval process, giving the alliance a central position to understand the impact of the standard and how best to support the region to adapt. After identifying a crucial gap in the market—decision-makers didn’t have a clear way to compare the energy and economic impacts of pumps products—the alliance helped develop an improved industry-standard energy rating label. Working with the Hydraulic Institute, the largest association of pumps manufacturers in North America, the alliance evolved the new energy rating label in 2025 to include expected dollar savings alongside expected energy savings. The improved label helps Northwest pump decision-makers easily compare products while also equipping them with an understanding of the immediate and long-term economic impacts of their purchasing decisions.
As the industry continues to advance, pump decision makers need better tools to evaluate both performance and long-term cost. Partnering with NEEA allowed us to enhance the pump energy rating label by adding expected dollar savings alongside energy performance, helping shift the market beyond first cost toward lifecycle value. This added transparency supports more informed decisions as the industry adapts to higher efficiency expectations.”
Michael Michaud | Executive Director
Hydraulic Institute
The alliance further helped empower the Northwest market by offering trainings across the four-state region, in the form of lunch-and-learn events and pumps-specific coursework offered by university-integrated design lab partners. These efforts are positioned to have a lasting impact by educating utility customers on this product category and paving the way for future utility programs to offer incentives for efficient pumps.
Building Regionwide Relationships Based on Data
NEEA’s Market Transformation work for efficient pumps achieved another big milestone in 2025 when the alliance expanded its partnerships with manufacturers and manufacturer representatives to include two organizations serving Idaho, Montana, and the eastern regions of Oregon and Washington. These new partnerships help the alliance to more fully support the entire Northwest and to gain access to valuable sales data from every state.
For many years, NEEA has powered its Market Transformation work by building these relationships with mid- and upstream market partners, including distributors, manufacturers and manufacturer representatives, to share and receive sales data. As NEEA’s data-sharing partnerships cross service territories and state lines, the alliance is uniquely positioned to achieve a regionwide understanding of the pumps product category, which is prominent throughout the region.
After acquiring data from commercial buildings and domestic water circulators, as well as industrial irrigation and well-pumping market partners, NEEA staff analyzes the numbers to understand current sales patterns, opportunities for market support and the overall market share of the most efficient products. This insight allows the alliance to dynamically adapt strategies in real time, including refining training and education efforts and identifying targeted market intervention opportunities, making it easier for the region to adjust to changing regulations and embrace adoption of more beneficial technologies.
Getting Smart with Pump Technology
These efforts merge with the alliance’s emerging technology Market Transformation work, in which NEEA staff vet and validate the most promising technologies to improve the efficiency and economic benefits for Northwest homes and businesses. In the pumps space, a highly promising technology arose to offer the region’s commercial, industrial and agricultural sectors a variety of operational and economic benefits in addition to aiding with compliance to the new standard.
Known as smart pumps, these smaller, packaged products offer best in class efficiency gains while adding value for businesses in a variety of ways, including:
- Prolonging the life of building equipment by allowing systems to run at their optimal performance speeds.
- Reducing maintenance needs for the building’s pumps and other systems.
- Saving space in equipment rooms.
- Minimizing operational noise—an important consideration for noise-sensitive sectors including hospitals and schools.
- Reducing installation costs and complexity.
By supporting the market to make it easier to understand and adopt smart pumps, the alliance has already helped to increase the region’s smart pump sales to a 23% market share in 2025, demonstrating that when complexity is reduced, customers are more likely to choose energy-saving solutions that strengthen the region’s water systems.
Pumps are everywhere across the Northwest’s industrial, agricultural, and water systems, and they are often among the largest energy users in these facilities. For many of our customers, pumps are a major operational investment, but it has not always been easy to compare options or understand long-term value. NEEA’s work has helped bring clarity to performance and efficiency of pump products, making it easier for customers to see how smart pumps can save energy, reduce operating costs, and support long-term system performance.”
H.A. “Buzz” Mills | President
2M Company, Inc.
Pumping up Northwest Markets for Continued Success
Looking ahead, the alliance will continue guiding the region into the smart pump era. By continuing to foster data-sharing partnerships with market actors, building awareness, and providing education on the new energy rating label and smart pump benefits, the alliance has set the foundation for sustained support for the region’s pumps market as it looks ahead to a similar U.S. DOE standard for circulators in 2028.