DOE Energy Standards for Pool Heaters

Last week, the Department of Energy issued a pre-publication notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) for energy standards for pool heaters, along with a public meeting and request for comment. The public meeting will be held via webinar on May 4, and comments will be due by the end of May. PHTA is engaging the DOE under a subset of our Energy Coalition. PHTA will attend the webinar and continue to work with PHTA members to respond collectively to the request for comment.

DOE worked on this issue previously, but last action was December 2015. This was due to the previous administration policy of not putting out new energy standards between 2016-2020. It appears that DOE is picking back up from where they left this issue back in 2015. Along with many other parties, including pool heater manufacturers, PHTA submitted comments in December 2015. The APSP/IHTA comments at that time were to ensure portable electric spa heating would not be captured by this rule.

The proposed regulation just released has DOE determining that electric spa heaters should be a separate product class and excluded from the proposed pool heater standard. The document notes previous comments that portable electric spa heating should be considered in a separate rulemaking. For more information or to participate in the coalition, reach out to Justin Wiley, PHTA Vice President of Government Relations, Standards, and Codes, at jwiley@phta.org.