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Product Designation Process

Federal agencies are required by law to purchase FEMP-designated or ENERGY STAR®-qualified products. These products are in the upper 25% of their class in energy efficiency.

FEMP-designated products are not specific products. FEMP does not purchase, recognize, endorse, or otherwise identify specific products for Federal procurement. Instead, FEMP identifies required purchasing specifications and performance requirements for a category of products, which is typically an energy consumption level within the upper 25% of the product category. For example:

In the category for "widgets," if there are some widgets that consume 1 kilowatt hour (kWh) per year and others that consume 100 kWh per year, the required consumption level for FEMP-designated widgets will be set at 25 kWh per year. Any widget that uses less than 25 kWh per year will meet FEMP-designated Federal purchasing specifications for widgets.

The Purchasing Specifications section outlines energy efficiency specifications for FEMP-designated products by category. FEMP also maintains a list of products that meet FEMP-designated standby power requirements, found in the Standby Power Data Center.

FEMP does not test or measure product energy consumption. The program depends on outside sources for product energy consumption data. In some cases, this may be a Federal energy program like ENERGY STAR.

Product Category Selection Criteria

For FEMP to identify a product category, a standard test procedure must be in place, and there must be some mechanism for customers to receive product energy consumption information as measured by that standard test procedure.

For FEMP to create a new product category, it is necessary to submit the following information:

• A standard test procedure to determine annual energy consumption, including standby energy consumption, for all products within the category
• An outside data source for consumers to access annual energy consumption information for all category products sold within the U.S. as tested by the standard procedure
• Data covering the installed base of a particular product category within the Federal Government, or the annual number of products within that category purchased within the Federal sector

With this information, FEMP will determine if a product category is needed. This information must cover ALL products within the category sold in the U.S.—not just products manufactured by your company.

FEMP will not designate a product category that does not have significant energy savings potential for the Federal Government based both on the volume of Federal purchases and the difference in energy use between a "base" model and a more efficient one. If no Federal agencies purchase the product, or if the difference in energy performance among products within the same category is trivial, FEMP will not designate performance specifications for the product category.

In most cases, Federal purchasers are required to consider three manufacturers when justifying a purchase. FEMP will try to avoid making an efficiency recommendation for new or innovative products that do not yet have multiple, competitive supply sources.

Contact

For additional information, contact Stephen Walder at stephen.walder@ee.doe.gov or 202-586-9209.