[Federal Register Volume 77, Number 96 (Thursday, May 17, 2012)]
[Notices]
[Pages 29331-29333]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2012-11998]


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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

[Case No. RF-022]


Publication of the Petition for Waiver From Sanyo E&E Corporation 
From the Department of Energy Residential Refrigerator and 
Refrigerator-Freezer Test Procedure

AGENCY: Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of 
Energy.

ACTION: Notice of re-opening of public comment period.

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SUMMARY: On April 2, 2012, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) 
published the Sanyo E&E Corporation (Sanyo) petition for waiver from 
the residential refrigerator and refrigerator-freezer test procedure. 
Comments were required to be submitted by May 2, 2012. This document 
announces that the period for submitting comments on the Sanyo petition 
for waiver is re-opened until June 18, 2012.

DATES: DOE will accept comments, data, and information regarding the 
Sanyo petition for waiver received no later than June 18, 2012.

ADDRESSES: Any comments submitted must identify the Sanyo E&E 
Corporation petition for waiver, and provide case number RF-022. 
Comments may be submitted using any of the following methods:
     Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. 
Follow the instructions for submitting comments.
     Email: [email protected]. Include the case 
number [Case No. RF-022] in the subject line of the message.
     Mail: Ms. Brenda Edwards, U.S. Department of Energy, 
Building Technologies Program, Mailstop EE-2J/1000 Independence Avenue 
SW., Washington, DC 20585-0121. Telephone: (202) 586-2945. Please 
submit one signed original paper copy.
     Hand Delivery/Courier: Ms. Brenda Edwards, U.S. Department 
of Energy, Building Technologies Program, 950 L'Enfant Plaza SW., Suite 
600, Washington, DC 20024. Please submit one signed original paper 
copy.
    Docket: For access to the docket to read background documents or 
comments received, visit the U.S. Department of Energy, Resource Room 
of the Building Technologies Program, 950 L'Enfant Plaza SW., 6th 
Floor, Washington, DC 20024, (202) 586-2945, between 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 
p.m. Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. Please call Ms. 
Brenda Edwards at the above telephone number for additional 
information.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Bryan Berringer, U.S. Department 
of Energy, Building Technologies Program, Mail Stop EE-2J, Forrestal 
Building, 1000 Independence Avenue SW., Washington, DC 20585-0121. 
Telephone: (202) 586-0371. Email: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On April 2, 2012, DOE published the Sanyo 
petition for waiver from the residential refrigerator, refrigerator-
freezer, and freezer test procedure in the Federal Register (77 FR 
19654). The notice provided for the submission of comments by May 2, 
2012. After the notice of petition for waiver was published, Sanyo 
provided DOE with

[[Page 29332]]

clarifications on certain items in its original petition, and requested 
that the comment period for its petition for waiver be extended so that 
commenters would have an opportunity to comment on the petition with 
these clarifications included. DOE is publishing Sanyo's request in its 
entirety. The request contains no confidential information. The request 
includes a suggested alternate test procedure to determine the energy 
consumption of Sanyo's specified hybrid refrigerators. To provide all 
manufacturers of domestically marketed units of the same product type 
additional time to submit comments on the additional information 
provided by Sanyo, DOE has determined that re-opening of the public 
comment period is appropriate and is hereby re-opening the comment 
period. DOE will consider any comments received by June 18, 2012 and 
deems any comments received between May 2, 2012 and June 18, 2012 to be 
timely submitted.

Further Information on Submitting Comments

    Under 10 CFR part 1004.11, any person submitting information that 
he or she believes to be confidential and exempt by law from public 
disclosure should submit two copies: One copy of the document including 
all the information believed to be confidential, and one copy of the 
document with the information believed to be confidential deleted. DOE 
will make its own determination about the confidential status of the 
information and treat it according to its determination.
    Factors of interest to DOE when evaluating requests to treat 
submitted information as confidential include (1) a description of the 
items, (2) whether and why such items are customarily treated as 
confidential within the industry, (3) whether the information is 
generally known by or available from other sources, (4) whether the 
information has previously been made available to others without 
obligation concerning its confidentiality, (5) an explanation of the 
competitive injury to the submitting person which would result from 
public disclosure, (6) when such information might lose its 
confidential character due to the passage of time, and (7) why 
disclosure of the information would be contrary to the public interest.

    Dated: Issued in Washington, DC, on May 9, 2012.
Kathleen B. Hogan,
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency, Energy Efficiency and 
Renewable Energy.

BEFORE THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Washington, DC 20585

    In the Matter of: SANYO E&E Corp., Petitioner).
Case Number: RF-022

REQUEST FOR EXTENSION OF COMMENT DEADLINE

    SANYO E&E Corporation (``SEE'') submits this Request for Extension 
of Comment Deadline (``Request'') with respect to its Petition for 
Waiver (``Petition'') filed with the Department of Energy (``DOE'') on 
June 2, 2011. Notice of SEE's Petition was published in the April 2, 
2012 Federal Register (Vol. 77, No. 63, p. 19654) (``Notice'') and the 
public comment period is currently scheduled to close on May 2, 2012. 
SEE respectfully requests that interested parties be granted thirty 
(30) additional days from the publication of this Request to file 
comments on SEE's Petition so that any commenters have sufficient time 
to provide a response incorporating the clarifications to the Petition 
SEE provides below. Granting the extension will not prejudice any 
interested parties, and will promote the efficient resolution of SEE's 
Petition.

1. SEE's Proposed Alternative Testing Method For Its Hybrid Models

    As SEE explained in its Petition, which SEE incorporates herein, 
SEE's hybrid models contain design characteristics that prevent testing 
of the basic models according to the test procedures prescribed in 10 
C.F.R. Sec.  430, subpart B, appendix A1. Specifically, while the 
beverage compartment of these hybrid models is cable of achieving 
temperatures at or below 38 [deg]F, the wine storage compartment of 
these single-cabinet units can only achieve a minimum temperature of 45 
[deg]F. As a result, it is impossible to test these hybrid models under 
DOE's current testing procedures, which mandate that energy consumption 
be measured when each compartment temperature is set at 38 [deg]F.
    In order to properly certify and rate these hybrid models, SEE 
proposed the following two formulas to measure the maximum allowable 
energy consumption of the wine storage and beverage compartments, 
respectively:

Energy consumption of the wine storage compartment:

    EWine = {ET1 + [(ET2-ET1) x (55 [deg]F-TW1)/(TW2-TW1)]{time}  *0.85 
\1\
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    \1\ SEE clarifies here that the .85 correction factor should be 
applied to the entire formula for the wine storage compartment, {ET1 
+ [(ET2-ET1) x (55 [deg]F-TW1)/(TW2-TW1)]{time} .
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Energy consumption of the refrigerated beverage compartment:

EBeverage Compartment= ET1 + [(ET2-ET1) x (38 [deg]F-TBC1)/(TBC2-
TBC1)].

    As SEE also explained, the K factor from CAN/CSA 300-08 6.3.1.2 and 
HRF-1-2007 8.7.2.1.1 was used because SEE's hybrid models will 
typically have a door-opening usage aligned with household freezers, 
and thus 0.85 was the employed K factor (correction factor). Further, 
to evaluate the models in a manner truly representative of their actual 
energy consumption characteristics, the standard temperature of single 
wine coolers (55 [deg]F) for the wine storage compartment and the 
standard temperature (38 [deg]F) for the refrigerated beverage 
compartment was used.\2\
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    \2\ As DOE itself noted in its Framework Public Meeting for Wine 
Chillers and Miscellaneous Refrigeration Products, the Association 
of Home Appliance Manufacturers, the California Energy Commission, 
and Natural Resources Canada ``all use a standardized compartment 
temperature of 55 [deg]F'' and a .85 K factor. Framework at pp. 34-
35, available at http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/appliance_standards/pdfs/wc_fw_meeting_presentation_draft.pdf. In the 
absence of an existing federal standard, SEE accordingly employed 
these prevailing standards in its proposed alternative testing 
method with respect to the wine storage compartment of SEE's hybrid 
models.
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    Applying these proposals, and in accordance with 10 C.F.R. Sec.  
430, subpart B, Appendix A1, SEE hybrid model MBCM24FW, which would be 
classified as a compact refrigerator with automatic defrost without 
through-the-door ice service and which has a total adjusted volume of 
5.75 cubic feet, would have a maximum allowable annual energy usage of 
436 kWh/year. Similarly, SEE hybrid models JUB248LB, JUB248RB, 
JUB248LW, JUB248RW, KBCO24LS, KBCS24LS, KBCO24RS, and KBCS24RS, which 
would also be classified as compact refrigerators with automatic 
defrost without through-the-door ice service and which have a total 
adjusted volume of 5.41 cubic feet, would have a maximum allowable 
annual energy usage of 431 kWh/year.

2. Clarification Of SEE Proposed Alternative Testing Method

    In its Notice, DOE stated that ``[w]e also note that the energy 
consumption of the basic models detailed in Sanyo's

[[Page 29333]]

petition suggests that these products, when tested in accordance with 
the alternate test procedure Sanyo is requesting to use, would appear 
to use an amount of energy that exceeds the energy conservation 
standards for the likely product classes that would apply.'' Notice at 
19655. SEE apologizes for any confusion caused by the proposed formulas 
in its Petition, as SEE did not mean to suggest that 436 kWh/year and 
431 kWh/year were the actual energy consumption values for the 
applicable hybrid models. Rather, SEE was attempting to demonstrate 
that these energy consumption figures would be the theoretical maximum 
allowable annual values under SEE's proposed alternative testing 
method. In order to avoid further confusion, SEE provides below a more 
detailed explanation as to how it derived these maximum allowable 
values.
    With respect to basic model MBCM24FWBS, the total adjusted volume 
of the beverage compartment is 2.8 cubic feet, while the total adjusted 
volume of the wine storage compartment is 2.95 cubic feet, for a total 
adjusted volume of 5.75 cubic feet. To calculate the maximum allowable 
annual energy consumption figure, however, SEE first calculated the 
maximum allowable energy consumption of this model as if it were 
entirely governed by the class 13 all-refrigerator standard, and then 
calculated the maximum allowable energy consumption figure as if it 
were entirely governed by the current CAN/CSA-C300-08 type 20 wine 
chiller standard:

10 CFR 430.32 class 13 all-refrigerator: 12.70 x 5.75 + 355 kWh/year = 
428 kWh/year
CAN/CSA-C300-08 type 20 wine chiller: 17.4 x 5.75 + 344 kWh/year = 444 
kWh/year

    SEE then took the weighted average of these figures based upon the 
actual total adjusted volume of the beverage compartment (2.8 cubic 
feet) and the wine storage compartment (2.95 cubic feet) to derive the 
proposed maximum allowable energy consumption figure contained in its 
Petition:

Combined standard: (428 kWh/year x 2.8/5.75) + (444 kWh/year x 2.95/
5.75) = 436 KWh/year

    With respect to basic models JUB248LB, JUB248RB, JUB248LW, 
JUB248RW, KBCO24LS, KBCS24LS, KBCO24RS, and KBCS24RS, SEE derived the 
maximum allowable energy consumption figure in the same manner, with 
the only difference being that the total adjusted volume of the wine 
storage compartment is 2.61 cubic feet for these basic models (the 
beverage compartment for these basic models is also 2.8 cubic feet), 
for a total adjusted volume of 5.41 cubic feet:

10 CFR 430.32 class 13 all-refrigerator: 12.70 x 5.41 + 355 kWh/year = 
424 kWh/year
CAN/CSA-C300-08 type 20 wine chiller: 17.4 x 5.41 + 344 kWh/year = 438 
kWh/year
Combined standard: (424 kWh/year x 2.8/5.41) + (438 kWh/year x 2.61/
5.41) = 431 kWh/year

    Thus, the 436 kWh/year and 431 kWh/year figures reflect the 
weighted average of the maximum allowable energy consumption standard 
pertaining to class 13 all-refrigerators, as applied to SEE's hybrid 
models' beverage compartment, and the CAN/CSA-C300-08 type 20 standard 
for wine chillers, as applied to SEE's hybrid models' wine storage 
compartment. SEE realizes that the bases for these figures may not have 
been entirely clear from SEE's Petition, and therefore SEE respectfully 
requests that DOE publish this clarification in order to provide 
interested parties with a more thorough understanding of how SEE 
derived its proposed alternative testing method and related maximum 
allowable energy consumption figures. SEE further requests that 
interested parties be granted thirty (30) additional days from the 
publication of this Request to file comments on SEE's Petition so that 
interested parties have sufficient time to provide a proper response 
without the need for an additional round of comments.
    If DOE requires any additional information to properly consider 
SEE's Petition, please do not hesitate to contact the undersigned.

Respectfully submitted,

/s---------------------------------------------------------------------

Alan G. Fishel
Adam D. Bowser
ARENT FOX LLP
1050 Connecticut Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036-5369
(202) 857-6450
[email protected]
[email protected]

April 20, 2012

[FR Doc. 2012-11998 Filed 5-16-12; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6450-01-P