Research Tracker

Unico Systems will develop a highly efficient, cost-effective residential cold climate heat pump that maintains efficiency and reliability at very low temperatures. The technology could lead to annual energy savings of 0.1 quads, equal to a reduction of 5.9 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), in partnership with ClimateWell and Rheem, will develop a residential, gas-fired split heat pump that will use an ammonia refrigerant, which is not a greenhouse gas and can convert chemical energy to heating and cooling without using any moving seals.

This project will test and validate an Intelligent Energy Management Solution (iEMS) in 100 residences to communicate with a variety of distributed energy resources over different climate zones and behavioral patterns. The intent of the project is to model and measure the potential energy and cost impact associated with the use of the iEMS in homes without affecting occupant comfort. The project will also integrate the use of pilot time-of-use utility rates in conjunction with simulated dynamic pricing signals to optimize customer cost savings.

In recent years, hundreds of communities have been working to promote energy efficiency upgrades in homes and other buildings, through programs such as the Better Buildings Neighborhood Program, Home Performance with ENERGY STAR, utility-sponsored programs, and others. The Better Buildings Residential Program Solution Center is a repository for key lessons, resources, and knowledge collected from the experience of these efforts. It is intended to help program administrators and their partners plan, operate, and evaluate residential energy efficiency programs.

In recent years, hundreds of communities have been working to promote energy efficiency upgrades in homes and other buildings, through programs such as the Better Buildings Neighborhood Program, Home Performance with ENERGY STAR, utility-sponsored programs, and others. The Better Buildings Residential Program Solution Center is a repository for key lessons, resources, and knowledge collected from the experience of these efforts. It is intended to help program administrators and their partners plan, operate, and evaluate residential energy efficiency programs.

This project proposes to research an issue which was identified during the current reverse cycle chiller (RCC) study regarding distributed heat loss. This project builds on an existing BPA funded multifamily heat pump reverse cycle chiller project, TIP 140. The results of this project have been good. This is a technology which has potential for multifamily and other applications in the Pacific Northwest. The TIP 140 project results identified that hot water recirculation systems can reduce efficiency by 30-40%. Additional work needs to be done to quantify the energy losses associated with typical hot water distribution systems. This research project contains a comprehensive approach to understanding and reducing energy losses in hot water recirculation systems. There are three work areas. The primary area is a pilot study to set up three different hot water distribution systems and understand the impact these three different approaches will have on the overall system efficiency. The second area is to meter actual heat loss from recirculation systems in two to three existing midrise multifamily buildings to better characterize the baseline. The third area is to directly measure performance of inverter-driven heat pump water heaters in the field with and without the impact of recirculation loops.

Heating and cooling represents the greatest energy consumption in buildings. This agreement develops thermal building insulation material with high R-value at a cost competitive to conventional insulation materials. The expected result provides a significant increase in energy efficiency for retrofitting buildings.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratory will develop insulation that is 2 to 4 times more efficient than conventional materials and at a comparable installed cost. This insulation technology has the potential of reaching an installed cost of $2.00 per square foot for R-12/inch and targets a technical potential of 1.7 quads.

This demonstration project will test the viability of replacing an RTU with Variable Capacity Heat Pump, Heat Recovery Ventilation (HRV) and a Dedicated Outside Air Source technologies. This project supports NEEA's HRV proof of concept project, by supporting a cold-climate installation at a BPA utility's building estimated to save 70% of the RTU energy use. Demonstration will inform future streamlined custom measures.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory will develop a high-impact heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration (HVAC&R) technology that can be used in many applications. This technology could lead to 0.7 - 1.1 quads of energy savings.

Sandia National Laboratories will develop a vapor compression cycle architecture. This technology can lead to an estimated 20% decrease in energy consumption in air conditioners and even greater savings when used as a heat pump in cold climates.

This project will integrate pre-commercial energy efficiency measures, building automation and controls system, behind the meter solar photovoltaic and energy storage in three existing public libraries in the City of San Diego. In addition to demonstrating cost-effective pathways to achieving maximum energy efficiency in the small commercial/municipal building sector, the recipient will engage in a multiyear, flexible, and transparent collaboration aimed at uncovering, testing, verifying and publicizing strategies for integrating energy efficiency, energy storage, solar photovoltaics, and other demand side resources to achieve near zero net energy in each library and to evaluate the financial value proposition.

The Association of Bay Area Governments will perform modeling analysis in nine Bay Area counties to help small and medium businesses achieve the cost effective energy efficiency improvements. The BayREN Integrated Commercial Retrofits project will modify and enhance existing open source tools to perform large-scale building energy modeling analysis on commercial buildings throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

Cree will develop a versatile, low-cost, low profile LED light-module architecture that facilitates the assembly of a variety of high-efficacy, broad-area LED luminaires. This lightweight architecture will be applicable to numerous high-efficiency, broad-area LED luminaires and will ultimately reduce the cost per lumen of LED lighting.

Cree, Inc. will develop a low-cost, high-efficiency LED architecture through modification to the conventional LED fabrication process flow. These new processes can be deployed in a variety of LED production lines, leading to reduced lighting energy use.

The project will transition the newly developed emitter materials from laboratory scale to pilot scale followed by comprehensive testing that will involve strategic manufacturing partners as part of the pre commercialization process.

Via a controlled demonstration, this project will provide economic justification and a plan for a market transformation effort to cause all new water heaters sold in the Pacific North West to be sold with the CEA-2045 modular communication interface and to include demand responsive behavior built into the electronic controls so the water heater will be DR ready. Update: This project is progressing. Recently, utility grants were awarded to fund locations for installations later this year.

International Center for Appropriate and Sustainable Technology will expand its one-stop-shop model to address the Small Commercial Apartment Property market with deeper retrofit. Using the model is expected to cut energy use by 20-30% in small commercial apartment properties, reduce individual building utility bills by $3,100 annually, and create 200 jobs.

In response to increased use of adaptive, exterior lighting products, and their potential for substantial energy savings, utilities are interested in creating a deemed incentive program focused on this technology. A simplified method is necessary to easily calculate expected energy savings and associated incentives. Energy savings for adaptive luminaires is clearly tied to occupancy patterns. To support a deemed incentive program, standardized occupancy profiles for a variety of nine key non-residential exterior spaces will be developed. These profiles may be used to easily calculate expected energy savings and associated incentives for a proposed adaptive exterior lighting project. Questions to address include: What is the occupancy/vacancy pattern for the nine building types? How does the rate vary across the different types of buildings? What are the variables that impact the occupancy/vacancy?

The new simplified energy enthalpy model (SEEM) project will both document and review the Regional Technical Forum (RTF) residential heating load calibration process. This independent review of the RTF residential heating load calibration process provides due diligence for the recent RTF reduction of residential measure savings, which may result in many existing measures becoming not cost-effective. Also, this review will ensure the new Planning tool (being developed under TIP318) doesnt just incorporate the RTF process, but instead incorporates the most appropriate calibration process. The RTF residential heating load calibration process was questioned at the an RTF meeting because it assumes the same heating load calibration for any heating zone. This project is needed for both existing and future residential measures and the Residential Sector fully supports this project.

The Building America Space Conditioning Standing Technical Committee and Expert Meeting reports identified high relative humidity as one of three issues with the highest technical priority for ensuring comfort in low-load homes. As such, the primary objective of this project is to evaluate factors that can contribute to high relative humidity in a home (variations in internal loads, equipment sizing, and equipment setup) and quantify their relative magnitude of impact on indoor relative humidity. A technical white paper will assess the sensitivity latent and sensible gains have on comfort and recommended system sizing. This will inform R&D needs for future BA/BTO work, provide actionable information to manufacturers on the equipment needs of low-load homes (see related project, Assessing the Market and Space-Conditioning Needs of Low-Load Homes), and provide system design and sizing guidance to contractors.

In this project, the Lighting Research Center (LRC) of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will demonstrate and evaluate LED lighting and controls. The LRC will first evaluate a range of commercially available but currently underutilized control products and systems, from simple stand-alone controls, to fixture-integrated products, and more complex automated control systems. The LRC will review the features, operations, and protocols of each system selected and will analyze the operation of these control products with various types of drivers commonly used in commercially available LED lighting products. Once this review is complete, the LRC will down select two or more control systems to demonstrate and evaluate in different areas of an existing office building. The LRC will also select and install LED lighting fixtures to retrofit the existing fluorescent lighting in the building. Once the systems are installed and commissioned, the LRC will evaluate the operation of the control and LED lighting systems and compare their performance, operation, energy savings, and occupant acceptance to each other, as well as to the previously existing lighting system.

enVerid Systems will demonstrate modular air treatment systems that use less energy to remove indoor air pollutants, such as carbon dioxide, in order to drive widespread adoption of this technology. This approach could reduce the energy consumption in commercial and public buildings by up to 50%.

BPA secondary research on Single-Package, Vertical Heat Pumps (SPVHP) supports the energy savings potential, and non-energy benefits, such as better indoor air quality for modular school buildings. The project will fund the installation of up to 5 SPVHPs. Project activities include pre and post metering; units would be installed over the summer to be ready for testing in the new school year. Following the analyses of the metered data, the decision will be made whether to expand the field test to other locations.