5% improvement on energy consumption efficiency for residential heat pump water heaters

5% improvement on energy consumption efficiency for residential heat pump water heaters

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (ANRE) summarized the energy conservation standards for FY2025 of residential heat pump water heaters based on the energy conservation act. The new standards are expected to improve energy consumption efficiency by about 5% compared to the actual results in the base year (FY2017). The current standards set in 2013 were achieved by all businesses operators including manufacturers. Water heaters account for about 30% of residential energy consumption. It aims to further improve the performance of water heaters by reviewing the targeted energy consumption efficiency.

It was summarized at the Energy Conservation Subcommittee of the Advisory Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (Advisory body of METI) , “Standard of judgment working group for air conditioner and electric water heater equipment” (WG, Eiji Hihara, Project Professor, Research and Development Department, National Institution for Academic Degrees and Quality Enhancement of Higher Education)

After the establishment of the current standards in 2013, a new method of measuring energy consumption efficiency was established in the Japanese Industrial Standards (JIS) in line with the actual use of electric hot water equipment. In addition to reflecting this, the standards will be raised to encourage the improvement on energy consumption efficiency.

For setting the target year (FY2025), development period for new heat pump water heaters, which usually takes two to four years, was taken into account. As with the current standards, the target for heat pump water heaters are all products of household heat pump water heaters that use carbon dioxide (CO2) as a refrigerant.