Energy Savings Potential and RD&D Opportunities for Non-Vapor
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Building Technologies Office Energy Savings Potential and RD&D Opportunities for Non- Vapor-Compression HVAC Technologies March 2014 NOTICE This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government, nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, nor any of their contractors, subcontractors, or their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency, contractor or subcontractor thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof. Available electronically at http://www.osti.gov/home/ i Energy Savings Potential and RD&D Opportunities for Non-Vapor-Compression HVAC Technologies Prepared for: U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Building Technologies Office http://www.buildings.energy.gov Prepared by: Navigant Consulting, Inc. 77 South Bedford Street, Suite 400 Burlington, MA 01803 William Goetzler Robert Zogg Jim Young Caitlin Johnson March 2014 ii Acknowledgement We gratefully acknowledge the support of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Building Technology Office (BTO) in funding this assessment. In addition, we greatly appreciate the guidance and input provided by Antonio Bouza, Technology Development Manager at BTO, and technical review by Omar Abdelaziz, Senior Fellow at BTO. iii Executive Summary While vapor-compression technologies have served heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) needs very effectively, and have been the dominant HVAC technology for close to 100 years, the conventional refrigerants used in vapor-compression equipment contribute to global climate change when released to the atmosphere. Leaders from the United States and other countries have responded with proposals to phase-down hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants (HFCs) for HVAC equipment over the next 20 years. The anticipated commitment to reduce HFC consumption has stimulated interest in alternative refrigerants with low-GWP. Researchers have identified low-GWP HFCs, hydrocarbons, ammonia, carbon dioxide, and hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs) as possible alternatives to the HFCs used today. Nevertheless, many of these alternative refrigerants potentially trade a GWP advantage for disadvantages related to toxicity, flammability, lower efficiency, and/or increased equipment cost. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Building Technologies Office (BTO) engaged Navigant Consulting, Inc. (Navigant) to characterize and evaluate alternatives to vapor-compression technology options to serve future residential and commercial HVAC applications. The objectives of this study were to: Identify alternatives to vapor-compression technology in residential and commercial HVAC applications Characterize these technologies based on their technical energy savings potential, development status, non-energy benefits, and other factors affecting end-user acceptance and their ability to compete with conventional vapor-compression systems Make specific research, development, and deployment (RD&D) recommendations to support further development of these technologies, should DOE choose to support non- vapor-compression technology further. While this study focused on space-conditioning applications, many of the technologies investigated are potentially applicable to refrigeration applications as well. Table ES-1-1 presents the technology options that we evaluated. We evaluated all technologies as stand-alone space-conditioning systems—not as components of space-conditioning systems, as some of these technologies are currently used. We screened out two technology options because available literature suggests that they are not suitable for space-conditioning applications. Additionally, we found a paucity of publicly available information for three technology options that are still in the early stages of research and development (R&D). Consequently, we could not quantitatively compare them to other options and thus only performed limited analysis on these options. iv Table ES-1-1: Technologies Considered in This Analysis Screened-Out Early-Stage Remaining Viable Technology Options Technology Options Technology Options Total: 2 Total: 3 Total: 17 Absorption Heat Pump Adsorption Heat Pump Brayton Heat Pump Duplex-Stirling Cycle Ejector Heat Pump Evaporative Cooling Evaporative Liquid Desiccant A/C Bernoulli Heat Pump Ground-Coupled Solid Desiccant A/C Pulse-Tube Refrigeration Critical-Flow Refrigeration Cycle Magnetocaloric Vortex-Tube Cooling Electrocaloric Membrane Heat Pump Standalone Liquid Desiccant A/C Standalone Solid Desiccant A/C Thermoacoustic Thermoelastic Thermoelectric Thermotunneling Vuilleumier Heat Pump Note: we evaluated the desiccant and evaporative technologies as standalone air-conditioning systems, not as supplements to vapor compression or other technologies. We then analyzed each of the 17 remaining viable technology options and characterized their current development status and performance to better understand their technical energy savings potential over vapor-compression technology for U.S. residential and commercial HVAC systems. Based on these analyses, we developed estimates for unit energy savings over baseline vapor-compression systems and identified relevant markets for each technology option (e.g., end use, building type, climate region, etc.). We calculated the technical energy savings potential for each technology option using BTO’s Prioritization Tool and our unit energy savings estimates. Figure ES-1-1 presents the technical energy savings potential for each of the non-vapor compression technology options. v Technical Energy Savings Potential (Quads/year) 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 Thermoelastic Evaporative Liquid Desiccant A/C Membrane Heat Pump Magnetocaloric Ground-Coupled Solid Desiccant A/C Vuilleumier Heat Pump Evaporative Absorption Heat Pump Thermotunneling Thermoelectric Adsorption Heat Pump Thermoacoustic Duplex-Stirling Heat Pump Brayton Heat Pump Ejector Heat Pump Standalone Liquid Desiccant A/C Standalone Solid Desiccant A/C Residential Space Heating Commercial Space Heating Residential Space Cooling Commercial Space Cooling Figure ES-1-1: Comparison of technical energy savings potential (Quads/year) To identify the most promising areas for potential further RD&D, we performed a scorecard analysis to evaluate each technology option based on the following criteria: technical energy savings potential, fit with BTO mission, non-energy benefits, and cost/complexity. We assigned each criterion a weighting factor to reflect its overall importance, and ranked the list of technology options by their final scores. Figure ES-1-2 presents their overall final scores. These scores reflect our current understanding of the technology options based on available information and judgment. In general, technology options scoring near the top of the list offer higher potential energy savings and higher probability of success if supported through BTO initiatives. However, lower-ranking technology options are still relevant for BTO’s consideration because although their savings may be modest today, additional R&D could advance their efficiency and performance beyond current limitations. vi Final Ranking of Technology Options 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 Thermoelastic Membrane Heat Pump Evaporative Liquid Desiccant A/C Magnetocaloric Vuilleumier Heat Pump Evaporative Thermoelectric Ground-Coupled Solid Desiccant A/C Absorption Heat Pump Duplex-Stirling Heat Pump Thermoacoustic Adsorption Heat Pump Thermotunneling Standalone Solid Desiccant A/C Standalone Liquid Desiccant A/C Ejector Heat Pump Brayton Heat Pump Figure ES-1-2: Final ranking of technology options Based on these rankings, we have classified these 17 technology options into four categories: Most Promising, Very Promising, Moderately Promising, and Least Promising, as outlined in Table ES-1-2. We identified the two technology options with overall scores over 4.0 as the “Most Promising” alternatives to vapor compression because they exhibit substantial potential for energy savings, offer significant non-energy benefits, are not projected to be significantly more expensive or complex, and/or fit very well with the BTO mission. We identified four technology options with overall scores of 3.5 or greater as “Very Promising” alternatives because they exhibit moderate-to-high energy savings potential, offer significant non-energy benefits, and/or fit well with the BTO mission. The seven technology options that we classified as “Moderately Promising” offer low-to-moderate energy savings potential or other benefits compared to vapor compression; however, these scores reflect the current status of these technology options, and may become more attractive as further development improves their performance. Finally, we identified four technology options as “Least Promising” alternatives to vapor compression because they offer zero energy savings compared to vapor compression. These technology