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EPA's GreenChill Advanced Refrigeration Partnership

GreenChill's founding food retail partners created baseline measurements of corporate-wide refrigerant emissions in 2007 and set goals to reduce those emissions in 2008. These partners reduced their aggregated total corporate emissions rate from 13 percent to 11.9 percent in 2008, an emissions reduction of 8.5 percent in one year.

Early GreenChill Partners are:
Sprouts Farmers Market, Fresh & Easy, Raley's Family of Fine Stores, Whole Foods, Supervalu, and Hill Phoenix Chill for the Environment

EPA's GreenChill Advanced Refrigeration Partnership announced its 2009 partner awards, and among the awardees are: Sprouts Farmers Market, Fresh & Easy, Raley's Family of Fine Stores, Whole Foods, Supervalu (including the Albertsons and Lucky Supermarkets banners), and Hill Phoenix. An EPA cooperative alliance with the supermarket industry, the GreenChill Partnership works with supermarkets to reduce their emissions of ozone-depleting and greenhouse gas refrigerants.

Sprouts Farmers Market, which owns stores across California, Arizona, Colorado, and Texas, received a New Partner Award, as did Fresh & Easy and Raley's Family of Fine Stores. Fresh & Easy can be found in Arizona, California and Nevada while Raley's Family of Fine Stores is located in California and Nevada.

"We look forward to a productive and mutually beneficial partnership with our new partners," said Keilly Witman, GreenChill Program Manager. "The public wants to do business with companies that share their environmental values. By joining GreenChill, these supermarkets are proving to consumers that they care about the Earth's ozone layer and climate system."

New partners pledge to go above and beyond regulatory requirements by measuring and tracking refrigerant emissions that affect climate change and the Earth's ozone layer, and then setting reduction targets for these emissions. Partners also agree to use only ozone-friendly alternatives in all new and remodeled stores.

"In Raley's first year as a GreenChill Partner, the company has already taken the lead in the number of GreenChill-certified stores," said Witman. "Raley's Family of Fine Stores has received two gold-level store certification awards and two silver-level store certification awards, proof that Raley's takes the GreenChill mission to protect the ozone layer and fight climate change very seriously."

Whole Foods, a nationwide chain of supermarkets, received the award for Most Improved Emissions Rate. Supervalu, which is the parent company of the Albertsons and Lucky banners, was recognized for achieving its emissions target in 2008/2009.

Refrigeration manufacturer Hill Phoenix also earned a Distinguished Partner Award for its advanced refrigeration technology, including compact chillers and secondary loop systems.

EPA estimates that if every supermarket in the nation joined GreenChill and reduced its emissions to the current GreenChill average, the nation could save the equivalent of 22 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and 240 ozone depleting potential (ODP) tons every year, all the while saving $108 million in refrigerant expenses annually.

GreenChill now has a total of 46 partners, including 37 food retail partners with over 6,500 stores in 47 states. For additional information on the EPA GreenChill Partnership, please visit: www.epa.gov/greenchill.

GOAL:  6 million new green-collar jobs.

Efficiency First is a nonprofit trade association that unites

• Home Performance contractors,
• residential energy consultants,
• building product manufacturers
• and other key members of America's growing green-collar workforce

Efficiency First advocates using the federal Home Performance with ENERGY STAR program as a standard model for efficiency retrofitting, including third-party verification. National contractor and auditor certification and accreditation should be mandated through RESNET (Residential Energy Services Network), BPI (Building Performance Institute) or other qualified accreditation agencies who conduct independent, third-party quality assurance on the work performed.

Together they intend to escalate the fight against global warming. Efficiency First was founded in 2009 to represent its members in public policy discussions at the state and national levels, to promote the benefits of Home Performance retrofitting, and to help our industry grow to meet unprecedented demand for quality home retrofitting services.

Our mission is to collaborate with legislators, government agencies and professional organizations in the advancement of a performance-based market for energy efficiency that will enable rapid growth in our industry while maintaining profitability and quality of service.

"Our goal is to see a steady run rate of
10 million home retrofits per year by 2020."

According to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, residential buildings alone generate over 20 percent of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel consumption in the United States.

Because the vast majority of America's 128 million homes do not operate anywhere near peak efficiency, large-scale retrofitting of existing residential buildings will play a key role in achieving significant greenhouse gas reductions, while lowering residential energy bills, improving indoor air quality and thermal comfort, reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and creating millions of new jobs for American workers.

The home retrofitting industry can achieve a 25% or greater decrease in non-renewable energy consumption by America's housing sector, leading to a 5% decrease in the country's overall carbon emissions - equivalent to taking half of all current passenger cars off the road.

The industry will employ at least 1.25 million American workers directly, and with the inclusion of manufacturing and other supporting industries, will generate up 6 million new green-collar jobs.

Technical Specs for Energy Star Qualified Homes

Homes built under 2001 T-24 code had until December 31, 2006 to complete construction.

All homes completed on or after January 1, 2007 must be 15% more energy efficient than the latest T-24 code (2005 T-24). Homes that were enrolled in a utility rebate program by December 31, 2005 had until January 1, 2007 to be qualified using the old ENERGY STAR guidelines. All homes enrolled in a program after January 1, 2006 must be qualified using the new guidelines and have a Thermal Bypass Checklist inspection. However, for the period January 1, 2007 to June 30, 2007, homes in this category will not be denied the ENERGY STAR label due to non-compliance with requirements of this additional inspection. As of July 1, 2007, these homes must pass the Thermal Bypass Inspection to earn the ENERGY STAR label.

The current ENERGY STAR Qualified Homes guidelines require that homes be 15% more energy efficient than the code under which they are permitted and be inspected by a CEC certified third party HERS rater. Sampling is allowed and shall follow the CEC HERS protocols.

Energy Star Qualified Homes Guidelines

The ENERGY STAR Qualified Homes guidelines requirements also include:

• Verification of adherence to the EPA ENERGY STAR Thermal Bypass Checklist/CEC Quality Installation Insulation merged protocols.
• All cooling equipment shall be sized according to the latest editions of the ACCA Manuals J and S, ASHRAE 2001 Handbook of Fundamentals, or the equivalent computation procedure.
  • Maximum oversizing of air conditioners is 15%.
  • Equipment oversizing calculations shall use 99.0% and 1.0% outdoor design temperatures as published in the ASHRAE Handbook of Fundamentals for most representative city. However, a prevailing outdoor design temperature used by the local HVAC industry that can be documented with available weather data is an acceptable alternative. The Indoor temperature shall be 75ºF for cooling and 70ºF for heating.
  • Infiltration rate shall be selected as tight.
  • Indoor and outdoor coils shall be matched in accordance with ARI standards.
• Ductwork leakage must be less than 6 cfm to outdoors per 100 square feet of conditioned space, though duct leakage tests can be waived if ducts and equipment are located in conditioned space and the home's envelope leakage is less than 0.25 CFM 50 per square foot of building envelope. (Meeting T-24 tight duct standard of 6% or less leakage of total air flow satisfies this requirement.)

Additional requirements bulleted above can be used to achieve the 15% performance margin. EPA also recommends, but does not require, that ductwork be located in conditioned space with a minimum of R-4 insulation to prevent condensation and moisture problems. Updated on February 28, 2007

FURTHER INFORMATION:

California Building Performance Contractors Association

CBPCA trains and certifies contractors for a better approach to energy efficiency, safety, comfort, and value. California Building Performance Association is a non-profit organization supporting energy efficiency and the residential contracting industry.

Utility Company Programs for Energy Star Ratings

Advanced Home Program by Southern California Gas Company

Performance Programs. Projects qualify when they exceed 2005 Title-24 compliance by 15%. California Energy Star® New Homes Program SoCal Gas Company

Advanced Home Program by San Diego Gas & Electric

The California ENERGY STAR® New Homes Program is a performance based program designed to encourage builders to construct single family and multi-family buildings that are energy efficient. San Diego Gas & Electric

SoCal Edison

California Energy Star New Homes Program Recognized as a National Leader in building conservation. SoCal Edison

PG&E ENERGY STAR® Qualified New Homes Program

PG&E works with builders to ensure that ENERGY STAR New Homes exceed California's rigorous energy efficiency PG&E

High efficiency washing machines with Energy Star certification can save both water and energy...and utility costs.

When buying an appliance, remember that it has two price tags:

ONE: How much you pay to take it home and

TWO:  How much you pay for the energy and water it uses.

ENERGY STAR qualified appliances incorporate advanced technologies that use 10-50% less energy and water than standard models. The money you save on your utility bills can more than make up for the cost of a more expensive but more efficient ENERGY STAR model. www.energystar.gov

An estimated 84 million American households own washing machines and approximately 8 million washers are sold in the United States annually.

Clothes washers meeting CEE's specifications use up to 72 percent less energy and up to 57 percent less water compared to standard-efficiency washers.

Federal high-efficiency energy minimum standard for clothes washers include a Modified Energy Factor (MEF) of 1.26.

They are projected to save as much as 475 kWh per year when used with an electric water heater and electric dryer.

Savings are projected to be up to 13 therms of gas per year when used with a gas water heater and gas dryer.

Potential water savings are estimated at up to 8,000 gallons annually.

SOURCE: CEE