Picks & Pans

Energy Star--The Great Contradiction

By now I hope all of you are familiar with the proposed Energy Star changes that are forthcoming. If you’ve been following these changes, along with the opinions of industry representatives versus those from the Department of Energy (DOE) closely, like me, you may have noticed a contradiction of sorts.

Here’s a quick refresher. In essence, the DOE wants to tighten the criteria for Energy Star as “the label should provide meaningful differentiation.” That was a statement made by Rich Karney, head of the DOE’s Energy Star program, during an industry meeting in January 2008. Since then, he and Mark LaFrance, his colleague at DOE, have been hitting the speaking circuit. They have traveled to various industry events to tell the door and window industry about the proposed changes.

Karney stressed that the program is striving to beat what is in the code requirements. “Energy Star barely beats the code in many states,” he said. “The latest data we have shows Energy Star at 53 percent of the market,” he said. “We’d like to see it at the top 25 percent as opposed to saturating the market.”

Let me stop there and say that I understand where he is coming from--that as with a washer or dryer, when a customer is searching for a door or window product the DOE wants it to be as easy as just looking for the Energy Star label. If every window had the label it wouldn’t mean anything right? That’s where the issue gets muddied. And that’s where many door and window manufacturers disagree with the DOE’s position.

So what if all windows were Energy Star certified? Granted, if that were the case then we’d probably have to come up with another tier to rate energy performance to determine the “best” levels. But if that’s the worst problem we have, good for us.

It seems as if the DOE is trying to make it “harder” for companies to meet the Energy Star criteria. But on the flip side, manufacturers are encouraging that ALL manufacturers participate in Energy Star. That’s where there is a clear contradiction between the two parties.

“Energy Star is the right thing to do,” said Phil Lewin, from Vinyl Window Designs a door and window manufacturer in Toronto, when speaking in November at the Win-door show. He told attendees that all door and window manufacturers should be participating in the Energy Star program. “It’s good from an environmental perspective. And if you don’t buy into that reason then--if you do it you will make money.”

Sounds like something all manufacturers would want to buy into considering the state of the current market.

I hope that many manufacturers take Lewin’s advice and strive for Energy Star. If we ever pass that 53 percent of the market and make it to say 70, 80 or even 90 percent, we’d really create a problem for the DOE. Again, not really a bad problem to have.