Effective January 1, 2018, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will implement a regulation prohibiting the production of new commercial rooftop and split systems larger than five tons. At the same time, the DOE will move to an IEER part-load-efficiency-only minimum requirement.
This regulation represents a 13% efficiency increase in IEER over current standards and will be followed by an additional increase of 15% in 2023 (Source: Department of Energy).