EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Energy efficiency improvements in buildings, both new and retrofit, require the availability of cost effective, high quality, energy efficient products with validated energy performance. A pilot project is proposed to upgrade the quality assurance/performance testing and certification infrastructure for energy efficient fenestration products to ISO/NFRC standards in certain transitional economy countries. Also, the project would develop the technical basis and institutional framework for replicating this experience in other transitional economies. A desired outcome of the project would be a significant improvement in the quality and energy performance of fenestration products along with significant energy and cost savings in the building sectors of participating countries.

As part of the pilot project, a technical review committee would be formed to provide technical advice and guidance to assure both the usefulness and rapid transfer of project results. The technical review/experts committee would be comprised of experts from the building physics laboratories, and other appropriate organizations, of transitional economy countries, and US and IEA country experts. The technical review committee could review the project experience as a possible model for assuring the energy efficiency of other building products.

Further, code and regulatory issues affecting the implementation of this project would be reviewed, and recommendations would be provided for resolving such issues, including draft code and regulation changes, if needed.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

The proposed project would adapt NFRC and ISO procedures, manuals, software and training programs to meet the requirements of the countries participating in the pilot project. Test equipment designs would be developed which could reduce the cost of necessary accurate test equipment by as much as 80%. Certification programs, which rely on low cost, accurate computer simulations for determining product performance, would be adapted for use in the pilot countries. These certification programs would use expensive laboratory testing primarily for a relatively small number of validation and random production tests. This element of the overall project resulted in significant testing cost savings (sometimes over 90% savings) in the United States while improving the accuracy and credibility of the results.

The lessons learned in establishing a cost reducing certification and testing program in the US and from work with a number of transition economies have established the basis for the proposed project. Also, the US Department of Energy has allocated funds and technical resources to support this project on a cost shared basis.

The initial project would establish a replicable set of technical information, tools, training programs, and would demonstrate and perfect these products in one or two countries. The results of the project, a replicable testing, certification and quality assurance program for energy efficient windows, along with all associated products, would be available to all interested transition economy countries. The cost of replicating this project in additional countries would be relatively low and could be the subject of a follow on effort. Further, this model could be adapted to other energy efficient products.