The Appliance Standards and Rulemaking Federal Advisory Committee (ASRAC), working with the industry via the Hydraulic Institute, developed an energy conservation standard and test procedure for commercial and industrial pumps (CIP). The ASRAC is working in response to the U.S. Department of Energy’s proposed rulemaking for test procedures for commercial and industrial pumps.

According to the Hydraulic Institute, Parsippany, N.J., the proposed CIP rule will eliminate the least efficient 25 percent of commercial and industrial pumps. The rule includes performance metrics for constant-speed equipment with no controls and for variable-speed equipment with controls, acknowledging the benefits of the system approach to reducing energy.

 As a result of the CIP ASRAC negotiations, certain pump types were excluded from the proposed rule. One of the excluded pump types is circulator pumps, which are relatively small centrifugal pumps designed for hydronic systems where only pipe friction head must be overcome. The ASRAC negotiation recommended that the HI circulator committee and the energy advocates enter an informal negotiation process to develop a framework that could be presented to the DOE for a separate rulemaking suitable for circulator pumps. To get involved with these efforts, contact Peter Gaydon at pgaydon@pumps.org.

For industrial pumps, the Hydraulic Institute and its members have worked closely with the DOE. As part of that process, HI’s pump system performance metric (PSPM) worked with the DOE to develop a tool to evaluate the pump energy index (PEI) of pumps.

According to HI, the tool will help pump manufacturers evaluate how their pump efficiencies stack up to the proposed minimum efficiency levels which will be set in the Energy Conservation Standard. A draft version of the PEI calculation tool can be downloaded here.