Green on the Hill: AC to get a chill; Biomass to get free pass?

Commercial AC and Heating Equipment Standards up for Review

By Stephen Barlas

June 15, 2011

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has started to evaluate whether it should set new minimum energy efficiency standards for a suite of industrial and commercial heating and cooling products. Looks like the EPA is going to give companies that use biomass a free pass from having to obtain clean air permits related to greenhouse gases (GHGs).

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has started to evaluate whether it should set new minimum energy efficiency standards for a suite of industrial and commercial heating and cooling products. Those product categories include six classes of water-cooled commercial package air conditioners and very large, evaporatively cooled air conditioners. Karim Amrane, vice president, regulatory and research, Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI), maintains that these are niche products, compared to mass-produced rooftop units.

Federal energy law requires the DOE to consider new or even higher standards when the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) publishes a new version of 90.1. ASHRAE 90.1-2010 was issued on Oct. 29, 2010.

Amrane said that manufacturers and commercial buyers represented by groups such as the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) International, which helped develop the ASHRAE standards, have no problem with DOE adopting ASHRAE 90.1-2010 as the new federal minimum.

Higher standards could be costly for everyone, however. The DOE can adopt an ASHRAE-plus standard if it finds "clear and convincing evidence" that the adoption of a more stringent level as a national standard would produce significant additional energy savings and would be technologically feasible and economically justified. Environmental groups likely will push for ASHRAE-plus.

The DOE is also considering new standards for much more widely used small-equipment classes (70,000 Btu/h or less) within single-package vertical air-conditioner and heat pump units (SPVACs/SPVUs). Standards there were set by the 2007 energy law called the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), which requires reconsideration of those standards, not any ASHRAE revision. There are somewhere between 100,000-200,000 units produced a year, according to AHRI's Amrane.

EPA May Exempt Biomass From GHG Manufacturer Count

Looks like the EPA is going to give companies that use biomass a free pass from having to obtain clean air permits related to greenhouse gases (GHGs). Earlier this year the agency said that companies have to start including GHG emissions when they count the toxic air emissions from their plants.

The EPA's initial GHG regulation took effect Jan. 1, 2011, when it issued a

final rule requiring "major sources" of air toxics to apply for a permit when their emissions crossed the threshold of 25 metric tons. GHG emissions previously were not computed in a program called "prevention of significant deterioration (PSD)."

Many industries complained that they should not have to include GHG emissions from biomass in the PSD count. The EPA published a proposed rule in January agreeing with that contention, and allowed a three-year exemption for biomass emissions from PSD calculations. However, some environmental groups are pressing the EPA to eliminate from that exemption some types of biomass.

Robert Bendick, director, U.S. government relations of The Nature Conservancy, agreed that "good" biomass should qualify for exemption from PSD counts. He includes in that category forest and agricultural wastes; urban wood wastes; removals associated with ecosystem restoration projects or right-of-way maintenance; and crops grown on lands that have long been in continuous agricultural production.

The kinds of biomass that Bendick said should not be exempt are vegetable oils (commonly used in the food industry, for example); materials taken from land that recently has been converted from forest or grassland to tillage crops; chipped or pelletized materials from whole trees; and materials that are shipped long distances from the point of harvest to the point of energy production.

How broadly the EPA defines the exemption will be important because many industries use biomass such as the paper and forest product industry and electric utilities. Some are experimenting with what is called torrefied biomass, which can be Giant Cane agricultural waste or restaurant food waste.

For example, Mark Dopp, senior vice president, American Meat Institute, wants the EPA to qualify as biomass rendered fats and recycled restaurant grease, tallow, sunflower hulls, biogas from wastewater treatment, biogas from manure treatment, and landfill gas.