The Hydraulic Institute (HI) lead the effort to organize the pump industry and facilitated the data gathering and standards development required for the Appliance Standards and Rulemaking Federal Advisory Committee (ASRAC) negotiated energy conservation standard and test procedure for Commercial and Industrial Pumps (CIP). The proposed CIP rule will eliminate the least efficient 25% of CIPs and includes performance metrics for constant speed equipment with no controls and for variable speed equipment with controls, acknowledging the benefits of the system approach to reducing energy.

As a result of the CIP ASRAC negotiations certain pump types were excluded from the proposed rule. One of the excluded pump types is circulator pumps, which are relatively small centrifugal pumps designed for hydronic systems where only pipe friction head must be overcome.

The ASRAC negotiation recommended that the HI circulator committee and the energy advocates enter an informal negotiation process to develop a framework that could be presented to the DOE for a separate rulemaking suitable for circulator pumps.

Currently the HI circulator committee and advocates are working on defining the following recommendations:

• Definition of a circulator pump (Scope)
• Performance metric to rate circulators
• Circulator performance data & sales survey
• Test procedure for circulators
• Standard performance levels for circulator pumps

Circulator pump manufacturers and other interested parties should be involved with this informal negotiation which will lead to a separate rule focused on circulator pumps.  Please contact Peter Gaydon, Technical Director, Hydraulic Institute, at pgaydon@pumps.org with any questions and to get involved with the Hydraulic Institute.