A test procedure for clothes dryers used to generate utility energy savings estimates
Version 2.0 – Updated December 2022
This document describes a clothes dryer laboratory test procedure used to calculate a real-world metric for residential clothes dryer energy use. The procedure describes the different cycles, settings, test load articles, and equipment needed to generate the energy metric referred to as the Utility Combined Energy Factor (UCEF). The resulting UCEF is a field study-validated weighted average of three laboratory tests specified in this procedure and a fourth manufacturer-reported U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Appendix D21 residential clothes dryer test.
This NEEA procedure was developed because DOE’s Appendix D2 only assesses dryer performance in a single mode with a uniform test load composed of thin, relatively small, half cotton/half synthetic test cloths. NEEA’s field data revealed that real-world dryer operation was significantly different: consumers often dried loads of articles of varying size, cotton content, and dimensionality using multiple dryer modes.
