Research Tracker

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in partnership with a US based global manufacturing services provider will design, construct, and demonstrate an affordable heat pump clothes dryer (HPCD) suitable for the US market. A novel hybrid HPCD will be developed and demonstrated to save at least 50% of the energy used by conventional electric dryers, and will have a payback of less than five years for at least 25% of BPA residential customers.

This project will develop test procedures for alternative refrigerants for flammability and energy savings characterization and to develop a “favorability” index of end-use market segments and equipment types based on potential GHG savings impact and commercial feasibility and adoption.

GE Global Research will design, build, and demonstrate a highly efficient residential electric clothes dryer. This technology could lead to more than 20 billion kWh of energy savings per year.

QM Power will install and demonstrate approximately 12,000 high-efficiency fans in more than 50 U.S. grocery stores, focusing on open display case retrofits. This technology has additional applications and could achieve more than 0.6 quads and more than $1 billion in energy savings.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory will demonstrate a high-efficiency refrigerator that uses novel rotating heat exchanger technology to reduce energy use. The technology could produce energy savings of approximately 13%, or 407 TBtu/year.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory will develop and demonstrate a cost-effective, energy-efficient clothes dryer that is based on thermoelectric technology. This transformative dryer technology has the potential to save 356 TBtu/year.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in partnership with Georgia Tech and IntelliChoice Energy, will integrate its Ground-Level Integrated Diverse Energy Storage (GLIDES) system with HVAC systems to provide efficient building-integrated electrical and thermal energy storage. This system enables smarter building-grid integration, as well as the use of low-grade heat, which would otherwise be lost in traditional HVAC systems.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory will develop a clothes dryer that is extremely energy efficient and has a load drying time of approximately 20 minutes. This technology has the potential to revolutionize the clothes dryer industry, as well as to achieve 0.4 quads of energy savings.

The research goals of the project will to identify what types of systems would provide the best baseline data for the Pacific NW (PNW). Utilizing a new portable metering system that can measure temperatures, pressures, true power, heat load, and Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER) of Commercial Refrigeration, units will be installed at four different grocery stores. Sites will be selected that would be open to a large scale energy conservation project that modifies the refrigeration system. The portable Climacheck systems will remain in place a full year after the project to study the effect on the new system and quantify energy savings. After 1 year of post project data collection, the Climacheck systems may be moved around more frequently to collect shorter-term period (three, six, or nine month) data on additional sites and system types.

This project is working to develop and validate new low-cost, low-toxicity additives for A2L refrigerants to reduce flammability and lower global warming potential (GWP). This proposed refrigerant formulation would be more difficult to ignite, minimizing the probability and severity of any events and lessening existing safety concerns.