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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2026

Enter the AHU (36th Chamber of ASHRAE): A Multi-site Field Study of ASHRAE G36

Despite being recognized as the best practice for advanced building controls, ASHRAE Guideline 36 (G36) has seen slow adoption in retrofit cases. Decisionmakers lack credible field evidence to justify the time and person-power investment. Most prior analyses have relied on software simulations, which overlook implementation challenges and fail to persuade owners to move from models to real-world deployment. This paper presents a multi-site field study of G36 performance, drawing on measured results from 17 projects across diverse building types and climate zones. The analysis disaggregates outcomes by the most widely adopted air handling unit (AHU) based G36 strategies, including trim-and-respond approaches to supply air temperature (SAT) and duct static pressure (DSP) reset, and economizer controls. Results for controls re programming implementations are encouraging, with HVAC savings ranging from 2% - 49%, with a median of 18%. The range aligns with simulation study findings showing 1% - 46% savings through these three strategies. These findings show that even without capital investment in control infrastructure upgrades, existing building owners are reaping significant benefits from updating HVAC sequences of operation to industry best-practice solutions. The results give practitioners and decisionmakers a reference point on what to expect, which strategies deliver, and how field performance may compare to simulation.

Deshpande, Reva↗
DOE OSTI2022

Cloud-Control of Legacy Building Automation System: A case study

As Internet of Things devices and cloud-based platforms become more mature, Energy Management and Information Systems (EMIS) are increasingly gaining momentum in the building industry. In large commercial buildings, Fault-Detection and Diagnostic (FDD) and energy information systems (EIS) are now established technologies with tens of providers and thousands of deployment sites across North America. The new frontier for the EMIS technology is now represented by control systems that use advanced system optimization (ASO) methods to improve the operations of the HVAC system. Given the complexity of the integration of such systems with the existing building automation systems (BAS) and the higher risk involved with direct control of the HVAC, these systems are still emerging in the market. This paper presents the results of a project in which a start-up company partnered with a research institution to develop a cloud-based software EMIS solution and deployed it in a university campus in California. The software system included advanced sensing, data acquisition, storage and advanced control and analytics applications developed on top of the native BAS. The new platform controls ten buildings on the campus and the FDD and the ASO applications deployed on this platform were able to generate energy savings of up to 35% and 25% in certain buildings for each functionality respectively. Where the platform did not save energy, it improved building service (air quality). Lessons learned include the importance of collaborating with and training the building operators and evaluating whether the legacy system can work reliably with the new technology.

Prakash, Anand Krishnan↗
DOE OSTI2025

Packages of Distributed Energy Technologies Demonstrating Demand Flexibility at Community Scale

The combination of increased electric load growth across all sectors, deferred electrical infrastructure investment, and other factors resulting in variable electric power supply, has created technical challenges to maintaining a resilient and reliable grid. Many federal, regional, and local efforts are in play to modernize the electric grid, including advancing building technologies and distributed energy resources (DERs) that are utilizing smarter controls to become responsive to both occupant and grid needs. This report reviews ten pilot projects demonstrating how groups of buildings combined with behind-the-meter (BTM) DERs such as electric vehicle (EV) charging, battery storage, flexible HVAC and domestic hot water systems, and photovoltaic systems can reliably and cost effectively provide grid services. Each of the ten pilot projects aim to deliver both energy efficiency and demand flexibility (DF) while supporting load growth. The ten demonstration teams are piloting flexible DER packages across diverse communities of residential and commercial buildings to address a variety of regional grid needs. The outcomes of these pilot projects will be used to inform future scaling through utility program development. This paper characterizes the ten teams, showcasing the decision-making process used by each group to develop their packages (Section 2), the grid services they plan to deliver (Section 3), the types of DER packages selected for deployment within building sectors (Section 4) and trends between building sector, DER types, and grid services In order to achieve community scale benefits, the pilot projects must utilize aggregated control mechanisms for coordinating buildings and DERs together. Several types of coordinated control architectures have evolved amongst the teams, influenced by use type, existing market conditions, and integration type. Three coordinated controls architectures have been characterized, highlighting their use cases, benefits, challenges, and tradeoffs in their design. These insights can aid utilities, control vendors, and developers in scaling community-level energy systems (Paul, 2024). Ultimately, the technology packages selected by the ten teams will be coordinated to provide power system services, also known as grid services. Insights from these demonstrations will be useful for grid operators, regulators, aggregators and other stakeholders as they look to deploy demand flexible resources as grid services in the future. The grid services that each team is targeting for demonstration are described in Section 3 and Section 4. Methods for evaluating the grid services have been described in the paper Metrics for Evaluating Grid Service Provision from Communities of Grid-interactive and Efficient Buildings and other DER (MacDonald, 2023). To identify technology packages for demonstration, Section 2 shows that project teams used a range of analysis approaches, including building energy modeling, AMI data analysis, cost-benefit frameworks, and utility pilot data. Some teams emphasized technical modeling to quantify grid impacts and demand reduction potential, while others prioritized economic evaluations, stakeholder input, or exploratory pilots to inform deployment decisions. This diversity reflects the need to tailor selection methods to project goals, available data, and organizational context. Section 5 discusses trends between the DER technologies deployed and the grid service provisions from each team. Residential buildings (multifamily and single family) lean towards technologies that enhance energy efficiency (e.g. weatherization upgrades, smart thermostats) and onsite power generation integration (e.g. solar PV). Commercial building demonstrations prioritize technologies that ensure operational reliability (e.g. battery storage) and centralized energy management systems and optimization solutions. Teams that are deploying controllable storage-based technologies are more likely to provide grid services that require a near real-time response. Teams incorporating load shifting technologies like smart thermostats with HEMs are likely to include energy markets participation and customer bill management offerings. Campus demonstrations are adopting diverse sets of DERs to emphasize renewable generation, paired with centralized control. This section also describes technologies that were considered during project planning but ultimately excluded from final deployment. These demonstrations reveal that effective DER package design should be tailored to building type, customer segment, and construction vintage. Multifamily buildings benefit from centralized HVAC upgrades and supervisory controls, while single-family homes are well-suited for individualized technologies like solar, storage, and smart home energy monitors. Commercial and campus settings prioritize EMIS integration and load optimization. New construction enables cost-effective integration of DER-ready infrastructure, whereas retrofits require deployments aligned with owner and tenant value streams. For utility program planners, early coordination with developers and building owners, paired with segmented and modular program offerings, can improve adoption, scalability, and grid impact.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Field Demonstration of the Brick Ontology to Scale up the Deployment of ASHRAE Guideline 36 Control Sequences

Many commercial buildings have a vast network of sensors as part of their building automation systems (BAS) that allows opportunities for energy consumption and cost savings by deploying advanced control sequences. However, this resource is often underutilized since BAS are typically programmed with simple control sequences with limited potential to deliver on these opportunities. The recent availability of ASHRAE Guideline 36 (G36) with advanced HVAC control sequences supports control retrofits in existing buildings to unlock much of the savings potential. However, barriers such as the lack of standard naming convention of building assets and data points, proprietary equipment and BAS, and the inherent uniqueness of buildings and their systems prevent building stakeholders from adopting any “plug-and-play” implementation of G36. Instead, control vendors must often undertake the manual and labor-intensive point mapping process to identify a data stream’s functional and spatial relationship within the HVAC system along with other relevant contexts and map it to the new control sequences. The vendor must carry out the point mapping process in each individual building since the mapping is unlikely to port over to another building. Even for the same building, the point mapping process can occur multiple times if various control vendors implement different control retrofits and/or multiple control retrofits happen over the lifecycle of the building. Then, there is the likelihood that G36 control sequences are programmed uniquely to the building, preventing the same implementation from being reused in another. Therefore, this paper presents a field demonstration of how we leveraged the Brick ontology with BACnet, OpenBuildingControl’s Control Description Language (CDL), and open-source support tools to implement scalable and portable advanced building controls. These tools provide standardized semantic descriptions and relationships of the building’s assets and data points (Brick), standardized communication protocol to read from and write to the building’s BAS (BACnet), and standardized code implementations (CDL) of standardized advanced control strategies (G36). We implemented G36’s hot water supply temperature setpoint reset in a Berkeley, CA building for this field demonstration. This field demonstration aims to show how integrating these tools may streamline the deployment of advanced control sequences such as G36 in a consistent manner regardless of differences found across buildings.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2022

Towards a Stronger Foundation: Digitizing Commercial Buildings with Brick to Enable Portable Advanced Applications

Most large commercial buildings have digital controls for their heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) and lighting systems with the potential to implement advanced control strategies and data analytics. However, advanced control strategies and data analytics are rarely deployed at scale due to non-standard naming conventions and heterogenous building configurations. Semantic metadata standards, like Brick, show promise to proliferate these applications across many buildings, but they have not been widely adopted by industry due to barriers such as perceived risk and unfamiliarity with the technology. This paper describes the workflow we established and evaluated while using it to develop over ten Brick models of existing buildings. Through this process, we observed that digitizing existing commercial buildings is a cost and labor-intensive effort in which understanding the buildings’ data streams is the major bottleneck. Yet, we conclude this investment is worthwhile since various use case applications such as fault detection and diagnostics, thermal comfort analysis, and HVAC control optimization can utilize the same Brick model. The paper also explores the challenges and lessons learned we encountered while creating these data models, such as: 1) difficulties in finding metadata descriptions and relationships for existing buildings; 2) handling missing concepts in the schema needed to model a building; 3) lack of guidance on how to structure the data model or how much detail to include; 4) unfamiliarity with technologies, which makes the learning curve steep for applications developers. Finally, we also describe future directions for semantic metadata research and development to make such transformative technologies more accessible to practitioners.

Roa, Carlos Duarte↗
DOE OSTI2012

Side-by-Side Field Evaluation of Highly Insulating Windows in the PNNL Lab Homes

To examine the energy, air leakage, and thermal performance of highly insulating windows, a field evaluation was undertaken in a matched pair of all-electric, factory-built “Lab Homes” located on the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) campus in Richland, Washington. The “baseline” Lab Home B was retrofitted with “standard” double-pane clear aluminum-frame slider windows and patio doors, while the “experimental” Lab Home A was retrofitted with Jeld-Wen® triple-pane vinyl-frame slider windows and patio doors with a U-factor of 0.2 and solar heat gain coefficient of 0.19. To assess the window, the building shell air leakage, energy use, and interior temperatures of each home were compared during the 2012 winter heating and summer cooling seasons. The measured energy savings in Lab Home B averaged 5,821 watt-hours per day (Wh/day) during the heating season and 6,518 Wh/day during the cooling season. The overall whole-house energy savings of Lab Home B compared to Lab Home A are 11.6% ± 1.53% for the heating season and 18.4 ± 2.06% for the cooling season for identical occupancy conditions with no window coverings deployed. Extrapolating these energy savings numbers based on typical average heating degree days and cooling degree days per year yields an estimated annual energy savings of 12.2%, or 1,784 kWh/yr. The data suggest that highly insulating windows are an effective energy-saving measure that should be considered for high-performance new homes and in existing retrofits. However, the cost effectiveness of the measure, as determined by the simple payback period, suggests that highly insulating window costs continue to make windows difficult to justify on a cost basis alone. Additional reductions in costs via improvements in manufacturing and/or market penetration that continue to drive down costs will make highly insulating windows much more viable as a cost-effective energy efficiency measure. This study also illustrates that highly insulating windows have important impacts on peak load, occupant comfort, and condensation potential, which are not captured in the energy savings calculation. More consistent and uniform interior temperature distributions suggest that highly insulated windows, as part of a high performance building envelope, may enable more centralized duct design and downsized HVAC systems. Shorter, more centralized duct systems and smaller HVAC systems to yield additional cost savings, making highly insulating windows more cost effective as part of a package of new construction or retrofit measures which achieve significant reductions in home energy use.

PNNL Lab Homes↗
DOE OSTI2012

MIT - Mighty Steps toward Energy Sustainability

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) partnered with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to develop and implement solutions to retrofit existing buildings to reduce energy consumption by at least 30% as part of DOE’s Commercial Building Partnerships (CBP) Program.1 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) provided technical expertise in support of this DOE program. MIT is one of the U.S.’s foremost higher education institutions, occupying a campus that is nearly 100 years old, with a building floor area totaling more than 12 million square feet. The CBP project focused on improving the energy performance of two campus buildings, the Ray and Maria Stata Center (RMSC) and the Building W91 (BW91) data center. A key goal of the project was to identify energy saving measures that could be applied to other buildings both within MIT’s portfolio and at other higher education institutions. The CBP retrofits at MIT are projected to reduce energy consumption by approximately 48%, including a reduction of around 72% in RMSC lighting energy and a reduction of approximately 55% in RMSC server room HVAC energy. The energy efficiency measure (EEM) package proposed for the BW91 data center is expected to reduce heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) energy use by 30% to 50%, depending on the final air intake temperature that is established for the server racks. The RMSC, an iconic building designed by Frank Gehry, houses the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, and the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2015

Case Study for the ARRA-funded GSHP Demonstration at University at Albany

High initial costs and lack of public awareness of ground-source heat pump (GSHP) technology are the two major barriers preventing rapid deployment of this energy-saving technology in the United States. Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), 26 GSHP projects have been competitively selected and carried out to demonstrate the benefits of GSHP systems and innovative technologies for cost reduction and/or performance improvement. This report highlights the findings of a case study of one of the ARRA-funded GSHP demonstration projects—a distributed GSHP system at a new 500-bed apartment-style student residence hall at the University at Albany. This case study is based on the analysis of detailed design documents, measured performance data, published catalog data of heat pump equipment, and actual construction costs. Simulations with a calibrated computer model are performed for both the demonstrated GSHP system and a baseline heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system to determine the energy savings and other related benefits achieved by the GSHP system. The evaluated performance metrics include the energy efficiency of the heat pump equipment and the overall GSHP system, as well as the pumping performance, energy savings, carbon emission reductions, and cost-effectiveness of the demonstrated GSHP system compared with the baseline HVAC system. This case study also identifies opportunities for improving the operational efficiency of the demonstrated GSHP system.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

Case Study for ARRA-funded Ground-Source Heat Pump (GSHP) Demonstration at Oakland University

High initial costs and lack of public awareness of ground-source heat pump (GSHP) technology are the two major barriers preventing rapid deployment of this energy-saving technology in the United States. Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), 26 GSHP projects have been competitively selected and carried out to demonstrate the benefits of GSHP systems and innovative technologies for cost reduction and/or performance improvement. This paper highlights the findings of a case study of one of the ARRA-funded GSHP demonstration projects, a ground-source variable refrigerant flow (GS-VRF) system installed at the Human Health Building at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. This case study is based on the analysis of measured performance data, maintenance records, construction costs, and simulations of the energy consumption of conventional central heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems providing the same level of space conditioning as the demonstrated GS-VRF system. The evaluated performance metrics include the energy efficiency of the heat pump equipment and the overall GS-VRF system, pumping performance, energy savings, carbon emission reductions, and cost-effectiveness of the GS-VRF system compared with conventional HVAC systems. This case study also identified opportunities for reducing uncertainties in the performance evaluation, improving the operational efficiency, and reducing the installed cost of similar GSHP systems in the future.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2012

Energy Savings Potential and Research, Development, & Demonstration Opportunities for Residential Building Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning Systems

This report is an assessment of 135 different heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) technologies for U.S. residential buildings to identify and provide analysis on 19 priority technology options in various stages of development. The analyses include an estimation of technical energy-savings potential, descriptions of technical maturity, descriptions of non-energy benefits, descriptions of current barriers for market adoption, and descriptions of the technology's applicability to different building or HVAC equipment types. From these technology descriptions, are suggestions for potential research, development and demonstration (RD&D) initiatives that would support further development of the priority technology options.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2015

Prototype Systems for Measuring Outdoor Air Intake Rates in Rooftop Air Handlers

The widespread absence of systems for real-time measurement and feedback control, of minimum outdoor air intake rates in HVAC systems contributes to the poor control of ventilation rates in commercial buildings. Ventilation rates affect building energy consumption and influence occupant health. The project designed fabricated and tested four prototypes of systems for measuring rates of outdoor air intake into roof top air handlers. All prototypes met the ±20% accuracy target at low wind speeds, with all prototypes accurate within approximately ±10% after application of calibration equations. One prototype met the accuracy target without a calibration. With two of four prototype measurement systems, there was no evidence that wind speed or direction affected accuracy; however, winds speeds were generally below usually 3.5 m s -1 (12.6 km h -1 ) and further testing is desirable. The airflow resistance of the prototypes was generally less than 35 Pa at maximum RTU air flow rates. A pressure drop of this magnitude will increase fan energy consumption by approximately 4%. The project did not have resources necessary to estimate costs of mass produced systems. The retail cost of components and materials used to construct prototypes ranged from approximately $1,200 to $1,700. The test data indicate that the basic designs developed in this project, particularly the designs of two of the prototypes, have considerable merit. Further design refinement, testing, and cost analysis would be necessary to fully assess commercial potential. The designs and test results will be communicated to the HVAC manufacturing community.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2016

Field Demonstration of Ground-Source Integrated Heat Pump - Final Report

Reducing energy consumption in buildings is key to reducing or limiting the negative environmental impacts from the building sector. According to the United States (U.S.) Energy Information Administration (EIA), in 2013, commercial buildings consumed 18.1 quads of primary energy, which was 18.6% of the total U.S. primary energy consumption. The primary energy consumption in the commercial sector is projected to increase by 2.8 quads from 2013 to 2040, the second largest increase after the industrial sector. Further space heating, space cooling, and ventilation (HVAC) services accounted for 31% of the energy consumption in commercial buildings. The technical objective of this project is to demonstrate the capability of the new GS-IHP system to reduce overall energy use for space heating, space cooling, and water heating by at least 45% vs. a conventional electric RTU and electric WH in a light commercial building application. This project supports the DOE-Building Technologies Office (BTO) goals of reducing HVAC energy use by 20% and water heating by 60% by 2030.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2017

Advanced control for ground source heat pump systems

Ground source heat pumps (GSHP), also known as geothermal heat pumps (GHP), are proven advanced HVAC systems that utilize clean and renewable geothermal energy, as well as the massive thermal storage capacity of the ground, to provide space conditioning and water heating for both residential and commercial buildings. GSHPs have higher energy efficiencies than conventional HVAC systems. It is estimated, if GSHPs achieve a 10% market share in the US, in each year, 0.6 Quad Btu primary energy consumption can be saved and 36 million tons carbon emissions can be avoided (Liu et al. 2017). However, the current market share of GSHPs is less than 1%. The foremost barrier preventing wider adoption of GSHPs is their high installation costs. To enable wider adoption of GSHPs, the costeffectiveness of GSHP applications must be improved.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2017

Case Study for the ARRA-funded Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) Demonstration at Wilders Grove Solid Waste Service Center in Raleigh, NC

High initial costs and lack of public awareness of ground-source heat pump (GSHP) technology are the two major barriers preventing rapid deployment of this energy-saving technology in the United States. Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), 26 GSHP projects have been competitively selected and carried out to demonstrate the benefits of GSHP systems and innovative technologies for cost reduction and/or performance improvement. This paper highlights the findings of a case study of one of the ARRA-funded GSHP demonstration projects, a distributed GSHP system for providing all the space conditioning, outdoor air ventilation, and 100% domestic hot water to the Wilders Grove Solid Waste Service Center of City of Raleigh, North Carolina. This case study is based on the analysis of measured performance data, construction costs, and simulations of the energy consumption of conventional central heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems providing the same level of space conditioning and outdoor air ventilation as the demonstrated GSHP system. The evaluated performance metrics include the energy efficiency of the heat pump equipment and the overall GSHP system, pumping performance, energy savings, carbon emission reductions, and cost-effectiveness of the GSHP system compared with conventional HVAC systems. This case study also identified opportunities for reducing uncertainties in the performance evaluation and improving the operational efficiency of the demonstrated GSHP system.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2018

Pilot Demonstration Test Bed for ICC Desiccant Based Cooling System Final Report CRADA No. TSB-737-93

In this CRADA project, LLNL provided a field engineering, operation, and maintenance evaluation of ICC’s Desiccant Based Cooling (DBC) System by installing and activating an instrumented test bed in a real application at LLNL. LLNL was approached by two manufacturers of newly emerging heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) equipment for technical assistance in obtaining engineering thermodynamic evaluation of their units. Despite promising improvements in technical HVAC performance and the elimination of environmentally sensitive materials (CFC’S), they experienced market resistance in the federal sector because of the need to develop a record of technical and reliability data. LLNL selected three sites as areas where the units could potentially produce significant improvements in energy consumption and healthy air conditions. This project covered the installation activation of the pilot test bed at LLNL. The collaborative effort provided statistical and requirements bases to make a valid evaluation of the units.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2018

High-Efficiency Solid State Heat Pump Module

The baseline heat pumping technology today is dominated by vapor compression refrigeration cycle that involves use of global warming potential fluids (e.g. hydrofluorocarbons HFC). Current regulations (e.g. 2016 Kigali agreement) and market needs are driving HVAC&R related building, automotive and aerospace industries to safe, compact and cost-effective systems with low global warming potential (GWP) footprint (i.e. direct GWP impact) and higher efficiencies (i.e. indirect GWP impact) and low life cycle cost. Among the solid-state technology options, electrocaloric heat pumping (ECHP) technology has potential to be more efficient, quiet and compact than vapor compression systems. However, electrocaloric technology is still at low maturity, as expressed by standard technology readiness level (TRL) assessments and hence was the focus of the current effort. During the current research effort, UTRC proved feasibility (TRL2/3) of the direct-air ECHP concept by demonstrating cooling of ambient air by 8.4°C (under no load conditions) in a laboratory environment. To the team’s knowledge this is the largest direct air cooling demonstration using electrocaloric technology. The technology was matured from lab-scale dime-sized materials to module-scale dimensions and further demonstrated the feasibility of integrating these electrocaloric materials into modules for providing direct-air cooling. The use of inexpensive polymer-based materials validates the economic feasibility of the proposed technology. Future effort is required to further mature this promising technology to TRL 4/5 demonstrating module and system performance at full capacity and efficiency. Maturity to beyond TRL4/5 could be done with limited potential field trials. Successful field trials can pave the way for commercialization. At full commercialization, electrocaloric based heating and cooling technologies have the potential to enable annual energy savings upwards of a quadrillion BTUs and reduction of 10s of million metric tons/yr of Green-House Gas (GHG) emissions in the US, leapfrogging emerging technologies and disrupting traditional cooling and heating systems in residential and commercial HVAC applications and enabling new applications. This would result in reduction of energy imports, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and help create US jobs in this new technical area.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2018

The Uniform Methods Project: Methods for Determining Energy Efficiency Savings for Specific Measures: January 2012 - September 2016

This is the complete set of Uniform Methods Project protocols for determining energy efficiency savings for specific measures, all within one report. The report includes the following chapters: Chapter 1: Introduction. Chapter 2: Commercial and Industrial Lighting Evaluation Protocol. Chapter 3: Commercial and Industrial Lighting Controls Evaluation Protocol. Chapter 4: Small Commercial and Residential Unitary and Split System HVAC Cooling Equipment-Efficiency Upgrade Evaluation Protocol. Chapter 5: Residential Furnaces and Boilers Evaluation Protocol. Chapter 6: Residential Lighting Evaluation Protocol. Chapter 7: Refrigerator Recycling Evaluation Protocol. Chapter 8: Whole-Building Retrofit with Consumption Data Analysis Evaluation Protocol. Chapter 9: Metering Cross-Cutting Protocol. Chapter 10: Peak Demand and Time-Differentiated Energy Savings Cross-Cutting Protocol. Chapter 11: Sample Design Cross-Cutting Protocol. Chapter 12: Survey Design and Implementation for Estimating Gross Savings Cross-Cutting Protocol. Chapter 13: Assessing Persistence and Other Evaluation Issues Cross-Cutting Protocol. Chapter 14: Chiller Evaluation Protocol. Chapter 15: Commercial New Construction Evaluation Protocol. Chapter 16: Retrocommissioning Evaluation Protocol. Chapter 17: Residential Behavior Evaluation Protocol. Chapter 18: Variable Frequency Drive Evaluation Protocol. Chapter 19: HVAC Controls (DDC/EMS/BAS) Evaluation Protocol. Chapter 20: Data. Center IT Efficiency Measures Evaluation Protocol. Chapter 21: Estimating Net Savings - Common Practices. Chapter 22: Compressed Air Evaluation Protocol. Chapter 23: Combined Heat and Power Evaluation Protocol. Chapter 24: Strategic Energy Management (SEM) Evaluation Protocol

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2018

Analysis of Cost Reduction Potential of Vertical Bore Ground Heat Exchanger (Final)

The geothermal heat pump (GHP), also referred to as a ground source heat pump, is a proven technology that can provide space conditioning and water heating with efficiencies higher than conventional heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems. This technology possesses great potential to become a mainstream technology for satisfying the thermal demands in the built environment. Analysis from the ongoing Geothermal Vision Study indicates that 100% retrofitting of commercial and residential markets with GHPs has the potential to save on the order of 6 quadrillion Btu per year (Liu et al. 2017). However, the current high installation costs and long payback periods limit the attractiveness of GHP installation in the United States. The cost of installing ground heat exchangers (GHXs) used for GHPs accounts for more than 30% of the total cost of a GHP system (NYSERDA 2017), and it is the biggest contributor to the cost premium of GHPs compared with conventional HVAC systems.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗