Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEEA) participated in the U.S. Department of Energy process to establish a standard regulating the consumption of energy in beverage vending machines (BVM). The standard was published in 2016 and compliance was required in January 2019. NEEA contracted with TRC Engineers to conduct an evaluation of efforts undertaken by NEEA and the energy efficiency stakeholders. For this project, TRC identified barriers to implementing the standard and the activities that NEEA and energy efficiency stakeholders took in order to affect the final adopted standard. To do this TRC conducted a literature review and interviewed participants in the rulemaking process from both the manufacturer and energy efficiency sides. The evaluation consisted of a qualitative assessment of NEEA’s influence in the establishment of the BVM standards, based on the NEEA Standards Development Logic Model, and a quantitative assessment of the savings from the standards due to all energy efficiency organizations, including NEEA. TRC’s impact assessment was that efficiency organizations had a low-to-moderate influence on the standard. TRC estimates that efficiency organizations contributed 10% of total savings from the standard.
