About: Empower Procurement Product Evaluation Hub

Background and Goals

Large commercial and institutional customers face uncertainty with performance and energy cost savings associated with purchasing advanced energy efficiency and energy storage products. The Product Evaluation Hub was created to serve as a third-party resource with application guidance, product-specific evaluations and side-by-side product comparisons to assist consumers in making informed buying decisions.

With funding from the California Energy Commission, the Product Evaluation Hub:

  • Evaluates select advanced energy efficiency and energy storage products in a rigorous and transparent manner, and
  • Disseminates evaluation results to large commercial and institutional customers that use a formal procurement process.

The evaluations enable ‘apples-to-apples’ comparisons of similar products, as well as comparisons to existing government and industry standards. Testing is conducted at respected and experienced institutions with comprehensive test facilities including UC Davis, UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Energy Solutions. The evaluations, and the supporting data, are available through this public web platform.

Providing detailed, comprehensive, and generalizable information in a format that facilitates comparisons provides buyers with valuable information on which to base their procurement decisions. By providing large customers with the tools they need to make informed purchasing decisions, the Hub will stimulate more widespread adoption of proven energy efficiency and energy storage products, reducing California’s overall energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.

Advisory Groups

A Technical Advisory Committee of industry experts provides input on our overall effort. In addition, specific Product Advisory Groups are convened for each product category to solicit expert feedback on evaluation methods. Representatives for these advisory groups were recruited from the research community, manufacturers, governmental agencies, and other industry organizations.