Comparison of U.S. and European Approaches to Regulating Fan Efficiency

Session 12, Paper 1, CIBSE ASHRAE Technical Symposium, Dublin, Ireland 3-4 April 2014

The United States and European Union began regulating commercial and industrial fan efficiency around the same time in 2007; however, they took very different approaches. The European Union began with product regulations stemming from Ecodesign directives. The U.S. began with adopting fan efficiency requirements into model codes and standards for energy efficiency and green construction published by ASHRAE and the International Code Council (ICC). A U.S. federal regulation began through the U.S. Department of Energy after the ASHRAE and ICC provisions had been initiated. This paper describes and compares the U.S. and European approaches regarding fan efficiency regulation. For the U.S. section, emphasis is placed on the use of model codes and standards such as ASHRAE Standard 90.1 because the U.S. Department of Energy regulation is not expected to become effective until 2020. For the European section, an outline of Commission Regulation (EU) No. 327/2011 is provided.