Connected Thermostats Data Submission FAQs

What data must be submitted to maintain ENERGY STAR certification?

To maintain the ENERGY STAR certification, the following data must be submitted to EPA or EPA authorized third party:

  1. Unit Shipment data once yearly (March 1)
  2. Performance data twice yearly (February 1, July 1)

What is unit shipment data submission?

EPA uses unit shipment data or other market indicators to understand the impact of our program and plan for future activity. Per the Providing Information to EPA section in the Partner Commitments portion of the Version 1.0 Specification, this includes:

  1. The total number of units newly subscribing to the CT service portion of ENERGY STAR certified CT products within the calendar year, or an equivalent measurement as agreed to in advance by EPA and Partner.
  2. Subscription data segmented by meaningful product characteristics (e.g., controlled system types, presence of additional functions) as prescribed by EPA.

When to submit unit shipment data?

Partners must submit unit shipment (subscription) data to EPA or an EPA-authorized third party annually by March 1 using the forms available at https://www.energystar.gov/partner-resources/products_partner_resources/brand-owner/unit-shipment-data. Direct any questions to our online help desk.

What is performance data submission?

Aggregate field savings data for one year and associated statistics must be submitted to EPA-authorized third party by sending the required documentation every 6 months to our online helpdesk. Use the topic “Products Partners” and subtopic “Product Certification.”

What are random number seeds?

Computer random number generators use “seeds” so that they do not produce the same list of random numbers every time. Most of them are set up to use a seed, like the date or something that mimics randomness of the computer algorithm, so that the resulting list of random numbers varies unpredictably from use to use. However, EPA wants the list of random numbers to vary, but be predictable, so that the process of developing field data is reproducible and auditable. Thus, EPA provides random number seeds before each performance data submission for random sampling. These can be found on our partner page for Connected Thermostats.

How to demonstrate field savings and gather performance data?

Detailed process to gather performance data can be found in the ENERGY STAR Method to Demonstrate Connected Thermostat Field Savings. Please see below for a summary of key steps in the process.

  1. Install and configure the most recent release of the ENERGY STAR CT Field Savings Software using the open-source code and instructions.
  2. Generate a metadata file that includes all instances of a fielded CT Product in the US, with appropriate information like thermostat id, equipment type, zip code, date etc.
  3. From the above metadata file, generate a new metadata file that eliminates CTs according to various rules such as invalid data, null zip code, incorrect reporting period etc.
  4. From the above metadata file, split CTs into 5 climate zone metadata files, using the file which maps U.S. ZIP codes with the Energy Information Administration (EIA) climate zones.
  5. Using Python Natsort, sort each climate zone metadata file by the unique thermostat id assigned to each thermostat.
  6. Using the Python Numpy random number generator, set a seed (supplied by EPA) for each climate zone manually with numpy.random.seed (number) and record these numbers.
  7. For each of the five EIA climate zones, generate metadata files with 250 CTs using the Numpy function numpy.random.choice, using replace=False to prevent sampling duplicates. If there are fewer than 250 thermostats in an EIA climate zone from which to sample, include all thermostats for that climate zone.
  8. Using the above metadata files, generate files that follow the requisite file format and content requirements.
  9. Verify that the data set consists of one metadata file and n interval data files (one interval data file for each CT in the sample)
  10. Process the data set using the ENERGY STAR CT Field Savings Software and submit the required files.

What files need to be submitted as a part of performance data submission?

The following files must be submitted as a part of performance data submission:

  1. thermostat_certification
  2. thermostat_stats

Note: In order to test the software and evaluate performance metrics EPA may request additional optional datasets from partners.

When to submit performance data?

These submissions take place every 6 months.

  1. Every February 1 partners must submit results derived from customer data for the previous January 1 through December 31 period.
  2. Every July 1 partners must submit results derived from customer data for the previous June 1 through May 31 period.