Our Emerging Technology efforts are well underway this year. The U.S. Department of Energy (U.S. DOE) announced two major initiatives in early April 2024. As part of its new Better Building Initiatives, the U.S. DOE announced the Better Buildings Commercial Building Heat Pump Accelerator to improve the efficiency and availability of commercial heat pump rooftop units. U.S. DOE’s second new initiative was the launch of the third and final phase of its commercial lighting sector-focused Lighting Prize (L-Prize®) competition.
On April 30, 2024, the U.S. DOE published the new federal efficiency standard for consumer water heaters, which will transition the majority of electric storage water heaters to heat pump water heaters (HPWHs) and improve gas storage water heater efficiency. The U.S. DOE cites NEEA’s Advanced Water Heating Specification (AWHS) as reference material for its final rule. You can read more about the standard on neea.org.
