Simulation & Analysis of the Hydronic Shell Retrofit System as a Solution for Deep Energy Retrofits and Electrification of Large Multifamily Housing Communities in Cold Climate

Technical Report · Fri Nov 29 04:00:00 EST 2024

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/2525877· OSTI ID:2525877

Kunwar, Niraj ^[1]; Anand, Jyothia ^[1]; Im, Piljae ^[1]; Goldstein, David ^[2]

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1. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
2. Hydronic Shell Technologies, New York, NY (United States)

Among 32 million multi-family buildings in the United States, approximately 42% have poor or no insulation. Envelope retrofits of these buildings will provide thermal resiliency and enable a pathway to electrification of space heating systems as a result of improved thermal performance. Hydronic Shell (HS) is a technology which combines an insulated retrofit panel with a heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) thus enabling both envelope retrofit and space heating electrification. In this study, we used whole building energy simulation to evaluate energy impact of multi-family building retrofit with hydronic shell system. The simulation was performed for four locations of New York, Syracuse, Chicago and Boston. The results from the simulation showed more than 66% cooling energy reduction and more than 88% heating energy reduction from Hydronic Shell retrofit compared to Baseline building in all four locations. This reduction in energy consumption resulted in up to 219 MT reduction in annual CO2 emission. The cost reduction per floor area achieved from HVAC energy consumption reduction using Hydronic Shell retrofit was 0.66 to 0.99 $$\$$$$/ft². The results also showed higher percentage of heating energy reduction comes from the envelope only retrofit and higher percentage of cooling energy reduction comes from the retrofit HVAC system for the four locations under study.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Hydronic Shell Technologies, New York, NY (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Energy Efficiency Office. Building Technologies Office
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 2525877
• Report Number(s): ORNL/TM--2024/3712; NFE2309771
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
HVAC
energy reduction
hydronic shell
poor insulation