High-efficiency Commercial Cold Climate Heat Pump
United Technologies Research Center (UTRC) proposed in 2012 to design, develop and demonstrate an air-source 10TR high-efficiency commercial cold climate heat pump (CCCHP). The proposed heat pump would be scalable beyond 40TR, cost effective with a simple payback of < 3 years upon commercialization and would reduce annual electricity use for building space heating in cold climates by at least 20%. This would represent an annual savings of $2.3 billion and a 20% displacement of total greenhouse gases generated upon full commercialization. The primary objective was to develop a highly integrated system that shall meet or exceed DOE capacity and efficiency targets at key conditions and is scalable, cost-effective and simple relative to the state-of-the-art. Specifically, the goal of the project was to design, develop and demonstrate a CCCHP that exceeds DOE capacity degradation requirements at +17F and -13F conditions (0 and <15% degradation vs. 10 and 25% DOE requirements, respectively) while meeting or exceeding DOE capacity and system efficiency requirements at all other conditions.