Ekotrope at the 2019 SWEEP Workshop
Last week, our co-founder and VP of Engineering, Cy Kilbourn, attended an exclusive workshop hosted by SWEEP, which gave industry leaders a platform to discuss recent news, challenges, and opportunities. As part of a continued effort to share industry news with our audience of energy professionals, we’ve gathered a few takeaways from the workshop and have shared them below. Thank you to SWEEP for including Ekotrope in this workshop, and to Cy for representing us.
There is a significant amount of interest around policy change concerning kWh goals and incentives. There is a push to shift away from flat kWh targets, which has led to challenges in aligning the goals of utilities and regulators. For utilities, there is a significant difference in the value of a saved kWh depending on when and where it occurs, and this difference is not captured in a flat annual kWh savings target.
According to an HVAC manufacturer representative, there can only be one federal efficiency rating for any category of product. This ultimately means it’s unlikely for heat pump ratings to evolve beyond Home Seasonal Performance Factor (HSPF) at a federal level. However, other organizations could make the push to go beyond this, which will ultimately be critical for properly evaluating high performance heat pumps like inverter driven ASHPs.
Lighting savings continue to be a topic of interest in the industry as programs continue to seek clarity on when and how lighting savings will be phased out. During this market transition, lighting savings in programs will continue to be valid for at least a short while longer. These savings could be safe through 2020, but each state will be different as the market transforms and policies adjust.