Commercial and Industrial Fans Naturally Occurring Baseline Review

As part of its Efficient Fans program, the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEEA) contracted with Apex Analytics, LLC (Apex), to conduct an independent review of the program’s natural market baseline forecast for efficiency levels of commercial and industrial stand-alone fans. The purposes of this review were to ensure that NEEA’s savings modeling assumptions for the program are reasonable and to identify any recommendations for improvement. Between October 2025 and February 2026, Apex reviewed NEEA’s data sources, documents and calculations and then provided feedback and recommendations. 

Based on the findings from the review, Apex reached the following conclusions:

1. NEEA’s approach to estimating the natural market baseline for stand-alone fan efficiency levels is reasonable, and predicted market factors that are likely to affect future efficiency levels also appear sensible.
2. The fan sales data on which NEEA’s baseline forecast is largely based represent the best available source of information but may not be fully representative of the Northwest market due to variance in sales patterns and product types across manufacturers.

Apex recommended that NEEA apply its proposed natural market baseline forecast without significant changes and that NEEA reassess market trends when and if historical sales data become available from additional stand-alone fan manufacturers.