The Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEEA) collaborated with Minnesota Center for Energy and the Environment (MNCEE) to complete a market sizing study, which is a standard deliverable in the early phase of all NEEA Market Transformation programs. In particular, the study sought to estimate: 1) the number of residential windows sold in the Northwest from the most recent year of complete sales data (2022), 2) the relative share of efficient windows represented in this data, and 3) the proportion of efficient windows that aligned with prescriptive or energy-equivalent pathways for ENERGY STAR® version 7.0 requirements.
For the study, Ducker Carlisle conducted secondary research and interviews with distributors and manufacturers from August 2023 through January 2024. The study estimated that 2.9 million windows were sold in the Northwest in 2022, with slightly over half installed in new construction applications. Almost all distributors and manufacturers interviewed sold ENERGY STAR rated windows and approximately 3% of windows sold in 2022 had a U-Factor of 0.22 or lower, meeting NEEA’s definition for high-performance windows. These findings support modeling of cost-effectiveness and long-term energy savings within the High-Performance Windows program.
