Replicating successful appliance efficiency policies can save governments and consumers money.
Comparing appliance energy performance requirements across economies is complex and made ever more complicated by variations in product definitions, energy test procedures, and efficiency metrics for MEPS and labels.
A lack of strategies and support for appliance and policy comparability can lead governments and policy makers to set more conservative efficiency requirements than they might if they could easily translate or adapt other economies' more stringent policies in their own policy terms.
Informed comparisons of energy efficiency products and policies can increase policymakers' confidence about the technical or economic feasibility of efficiency requirements, enabling additional energy savings from the adoption of broader or more stringent S&L policy.
CLASP supports and facilitates global S&L policy and product comparability, in part, through the maintenance of the CLASP Global S&L Database. CLASP's Global S&L Database is an online resource that allows policy makers and S&L practitioners to view and understand the legislative framework and history of S&L by country and economic region; compare policies and regulations across countries and by product; and explore specific information about those policies – level of stringency, dates implemented, etc.
Governments and policy makers may use appliance benchmarking analysis and harmonization analysis to compare products and policies and establish globally strong and comparable product efficiency levels.
Benchmarking
Appliance benchmarking analyses, which identify the most efficient products and S&L best practices in economies around the world, provide international comparisons of energy efficiency performance and policy measures and help pull the market towards higher levels of product efficiency. By identifying the highest achievable efficiency and policy levels, product benchmarking studies lay the foundation for strong and comparable energy performance requirements at the global level.
Harmonization
Harmonization analyses identify potential test method alignment opportunities and illustrate which products and policies can be successfully compared in an ongoing way among economies. Aligned test procedures enable cross-economy benchmarking of the most energy efficient products; increased effectiveness of MV&E policies; and a permanent shift in the market toward greater energy efficiency.
Example: Cooling Benchmarking Study Compares Air Conditioner Efficiency in Major World Economies
CLASP, in partnership with Econoler, Navigant, CEIS and ACEEE, carried out the Cooling Benchmarking Study to provide policy makers and energy efficiency program managers with tools and important insights for developing or updating test procedures, labels, and minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) for room air conditioners (RACs). The study also enables the comparison of MEPS stringency and RAC efficiency under various test procedures and energy efficiency (EE) metrics that are currently used in major world economies. The ability to compare RAC efficiencies and MEPS stringency across economies enables policy makers and EE program managers to better understand RAC efficiency possibilities, and can lead to technology diffusion.
For more information on RAC benchmarking, see the Cooling Benchmarking Study. Additional benchmarking studies are forthcoming from CLASP.