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Consumer Life-Cycle Cost Impacts of Energy-Efficiency Standards for Residential-Type Central Air Conditioners and Heat Pumps

Publication Type

Report

Date Published

10/2001

Authors

Rosenquist, Gregory J, Peter T Chan, Alexander B Lekov, James E McMahon, Robert D Van Buskirk

Abstract

In support of the federal government's efforts to raise the minimum energy-efficiency standards for residential-type central air conditioners and heat pumps, a consumer life-cycle cost (LCC) analysis was conducted to demonstrate the economic impacts on individual consumers from revisions to the standards. LCC is the consumer's cost of purchasing and installing an air conditioner or heat pump and operating the unit over its lifetime. The LCC analysis is conducted on a nationally representative sample of air conditioner and heat pump consumers resulting in a distribution of LCC impacts showing the percentage of consumers that are either benefitting or being burdened by increased standards. Relative to the existing minimum efficiency standard of 10 SEER, the results show that a majority of split system air conditioner and heat pump consumers will either benefit or be insignificantly impacted by increased efficiency standards of up to 13 SEER.

Year of Publication

2001

Notes

Conference Paper, ASHRAE Transactions, 108, issue: 13, 2002 2001-10-10