Cooling and Heating Season Impacts of Right-Sizing of Fixed- and Variable-Capacity Heat Pumps With Attic and Indoor Ductwork

Technical Report · Mon Jun 01 00:00:00 EDT 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1220509· OSTI ID:1220509

Cummings, James ^[1]; Withers, Charles ^[1]; Kono, Jamie ^[1]

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1. Building America Partnership for Improved Residential Construction, Cocoa, FL (United States)

A new generation of central, ducted variable-capacity heat pump systems has come on the market, promising very high cooling and heating efficiency. They are controlled differently than standard fixed-capacity systems. Instead of cycling on at full capacity and then cycling off when the thermostat is satisfied, they vary their cooling and heating output over a wide range (approximately 40% - 118% of nominal full capacity), thus staying 'on' for 60% - 100% more hours per day compared to fixed -capacity systems. Experiments in this research examined the performance of 2-ton and 3-ton fixed- and variable-capacity systems and the impacts of system oversizing.

• Research Organization: Building America Partnership for Improved Residential Construction, Cocoa, FL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Energy Efficiency Office. Building Technologies Office
• DOE Contract Number: AC36-08GO28308
• OSTI ID: 1220509
• Report Number(s): DOE/GO-102015-4678; 7124
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

residential
Residential Buildings
BA-PIRC
Building America
HVAC Sizing
variable capacity heat pump
indoor ductwork
iQ drive
over-sized systems
seasonal energy savings
peak demand energy savings