BTO Standards Team Honored for Record-Breaking Work in 2015

At the Secretarial Honor and Presidential Rank Awards, the DOE Building Technologies Office’s Appliance and Equipment Standards (ASP) program won a Secretary of Energy Achievement Award, under the leadership of John Cymbalsky, for its work last year on finalizing a record 13 standards, including the largest energy-saving standard in U.S. history. Award-winning teams must have demonstrated cooperation and teamwork en-route to accomplishing significant achievements on behalf of DOE and attaining their goals.

Since 2009, this dedicated group of 33 DOE employees has issued energy-efficiency standards for a range of products – over 40 in all – including clothing washers and dryers and commercial refrigeration equipment. In 2015 alone, American consumers saved $63 billion on their utility bills as a result of these standards. The entire program covers more than 60 products, representing about 90% of home energy use, 60% of commercial building energy use, and 30% of industrial energy use.

At ASP’s current pace, they will finish their final set of the current administration’s standards by the end of the year. This will cumulatively keep 3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, or an entire year’s worth of power plant emissions, from ever entering the atmosphere.

Cymbalsky has been a major force in driving the Appliance and Equipment Standards program toward this achievement. Only weeks before this announcement, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy named Cymbalsky a “Champion of Energy Efficiency,” a peer-nominated award for energy efficiency leaders who have demonstrated excellence in research and development, energy policy, implementation and deployment, buildings leadership, or lifetime achievement.