Energy Use Analysis

Energy Use Analysis

The energy use analysis seeks to characterize how the product is actually used in the range of conditions that exist in the field. We often utilize detailed national end-user surveys such as the Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) and the Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS). In the case of home appliances, RECS provides detailed information on appliance saturation in the housing stock and typically the appliance utilization or energy consumption. Energy use is either provided directly by RECS or derived from RECS appliance use information in combination with engineering, field-metered, and/or weather data. For clothes washers, for example, RECS provides frequency of use, wash and rinse temperature, and whether the clothes washer has the ENERGY STAR label, which is then combined with per-cycle energy use data from the engineering analysis to calculate energy use on a household basis. 

Graph showing average annual energy use for U.S. Refrigerators

 

Analysis Example

A recent example of an energy use analysis is described in chapter 7 in the Final Rule Technical Support Document for Portable Air Conditioners.  

Related Publications

Sun, Qingyi, Jing Ke, Camilla Dunham, Joong Hoon Sim, and Yuting Chen. Using Field-Metered Data to Characterize Consumer Usage Patterns of Residential Dishwashers. (2023)

Ganeshalingam, Mohan, Robert Hosbach, Liat Zavodivker, Brian F. Gerke, Colleen Kantner, and Hannah Stratton. Consumer Purchasing Behavior and Usage of Lighting in the Residential Sector. (2022)

Stratton, Hannah, Yuting Chen, Camilla Dunham, Thomas A. Burke, Hung-Chia Yang, and Mohan Ganeshalingam. Dishwashers in the Residential Sector: A Survey of Product Characteristics, Usage, and Consumer Preferences. (2021)

Coughlin, Katie, Edward Cubero, Akhil Mathur, and Gregory J Rosenquist. Analysis of Space-Conditioning Loads in Commercial Buildings. 2020. LBNL-2001339. PDF.

Desroches, Louis-Benoit, Heidi Fuchs, Jeffery B Greenblatt, Stacy Pratt, Henry Willem, Erin S Claybaugh, Bereket Beraki, Mythri Nagaraju, Sarah K Price, and Scott J Young. Computer usage and national energy consumption: Results from a field-metering study. 2014. LBNL-6876E. PDF

Burke, Thomas A, Henry Willem, Chun Chun Ni, Hannah Stratton, Yuting Chen, Mohan Ganeshalingam, Maithili Iyer, Sarah K Price, and Camilla Dunham. Using Field-Metered Data to Quantify Annual Energy Use of Portable Air Conditioners. 2014. LBNL-6868E. PDF.

Greenblatt, Jeffery B, Asa S Hopkins, Virginie E Letschert, and Michael Blasnik. Energy use of U.S. residential refrigerators and freezers: function derivation based on household and climate characteristics. Energy Efficiency 6.1 (2013) 135-162.