Energy Conservation Program for Consumer Products: Test Procedures for Refrigerators, Refrigerator-Freezers, and Freezers

On May 27, 2010, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) to amend the test procedures for refrigerators, refrigerator-freezers, and freezers. That proposed rulemaking serves as the basis for today's action. DOE is issuing a final rule regarding Appendix A1 and Appendix B1, and an interim final rule for Appendix A and Appendix B. The final rule amends the current procedures, incorporating changes that will take effect 30 days after the final rule publication date. These changes will be mandatory for product testing to demonstrate compliance with the current energy standards and for representations starting 180 days after publication. These changes, which will not affect measured energy use, include test procedures to account for refrigerator-freezers equipped with variable anti-sweat heater controls, establishing test procedures for refrigerator-freezers equipped with more than two compartments, making minor adjustments to eliminate any potential ambiguity regarding how to conduct tests, and clarifying certain reporting requirements. The interim final rule establishes amended test procedures for refrigerators, refrigerator-freezers, and freezers that would be required for measuring energy consumption once DOE promulgates new energy conservation standards for these products. These new standards are currently under development in a separate rulemaking activity and will apply to newly manufactured products starting in 2014. Today's action also discusses the treatment of combination wine storage-freezer products that were the subject of a recent test procedure waiver, energy use measurement round-off, and additional topics raised by stakeholders during the rulemaking's comment period. While the amended test procedures will be based largely on the test methodology used in the existing test procedures, they also include significant revisions with respect to the measurement of compartment temperatures and compartment volumes. These measurements will provide a more comprehensive accounting of energy usage by these products. The amended test procedure will modify the long-time automatic defrost test procedure to capture all energy use associated with the defrost cycle, establish a test procedure for products with a single compressor and multiple evaporators with active defrost cycles, incorporate into the energy use metric the energy use associated with icemaking for products with automatic icemakers, and clarify requirements on temperature control settings during testing.