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The USA Department of Energy (DOE) has issued final energy saving standards for gas furnaces at residential homes to curb planet-warming emissions from these ubiquitous appliances by replacing old polluting models, as well as to lighten bills for consumers.
“These standards, which take effect late 2028, require non-weatherized gas furnaces and those used in mobile homes to achieve an annual fuel utilization efficiency of 95 percent, conserving energy and improving residential heating”, the DOE said in a press release.
It expects the adoption of the standards to, over 30 years, cut $24.8 billion from energy bills and avoid 332 million metric tons of carbon emissions, equivalent to the total annual emissions of 42 million homes or about 34 percent of homes in the country. These standards would also avert 4.3 million metric tons of methane over the same period, equivalent to the combined yearly emissions of 14 million homes or around 29 coal plants, the DOE said.
“As of 2022, residential gas furnaces account for approximately 19 percent of annual residential energy use in the United States”, the DOE noted.
Efficiency thresholds for residential gas furnaces were last updated some three decades ago. That version, published November 19, 2007 and enforced 2015, set an annual fuel utilization of 80 percent for non-weatherized gas furnaces and mobile home gas furnaces, 81 percent for weatherized ones and 82 percent for oil-run furnaces.
The modernized standards will be “reducing waste by converting nearly all of the gas used into heat for the living space”, the DOE said. “This standard is readily achievable by modern condensing furnaces, which use secondary heat exchangers to capture excess heat from the furnace’s exhaust gases”.
The department has now issued proposed or final energy efficiency standards for 24 product categories, it said. Its Building Technologies Office implements minimum energy conservation standards for over 60 categories of appliances and equipment. “As a result of these standards, American consumers saved $63 billion on their utility bills in 2015 alone”, the DOE says on its website. “By 2030, cumulative operating cost savings from all standards in effect since 1987 will reach nearly $2 trillion. Products covered by standards represent about 90 percent of home energy use, 60 percent of commercial building use, and 30 percent of industrial energy use”.
The DOE said in the news release, “Collectively, DOE’s past and planned energy efficiency actions under the Biden-Harris Administration will save Americans $570 billion and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 2.4 billion metric tons cumulatively over 30 years, supporting the President’s ambitious efforts to tackle the climate crisis”.
Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm said in a statement, “At the direction of Congress, DOE is continuing to review and finalize energy standards for household appliances, such as residential furnaces, to lower costs for working families by reducing energy use and slashing harmful pollutants in homes across the nation”.
The advocacy coalition Environment America welcomed the adoption of the new standards, noting, “Furnace efficiency standards had not been meaningfully updated since they were set by Congress in 1987”.
“DOE made a slight update in 2007, but to an efficiency level that 99 percent of models already met”, it said in a statement on its website.
“Heating is the largest utility cost in most homes, but we’ve still been installing many inefficient new models”, Steven Nadel, executive director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, said in the statement.
Andrew deLaski, executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, also said in the statement, “Furnace technology advanced a long time ago, but the standards didn’t keep up”.
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