Impact of installation faults in air conditioners and heat pumps in single-family homes on U.S. energy usage

Winkler, Jonathan; Das, Saptarshi; Earle, Lieko; Burkett, Lena; Robertson, Joe; Roberts, Dave; Booten, Chuck

doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.115533

Title: Impact of installation faults in air conditioners and heat pumps in single-family homes on U.S. energy usage

Abstract

To ensure that new residential air conditioners and heat pumps operate optimally, care must be taken during the initial system design and installation to avoid missteps that immediately degrade a system’s performance. Laboratory and simulation studies have quantified the impact that faults can have on capacity and efficiency. Field studies have demonstrated that installation-related faults are commonplace. However, the national impact of installation-related faults cannot be accurately estimated by only simulating a limited number of homes at several fault levels because of the variety of home characteristics and climates involved. In our analysis, we use an improved residential building stock simulation tool to predict the annual energy increase and additional utility costs resulting from two common installation faults: indoor airflow rate and refrigerant charge level. Our method considers the wide range of building characteristics and climate zones of the U.S. housing stock. We use existing field data to develop fault intensity probability distributions to inform our analysis. The study shows that these two faults result in approximately 20.7 TWh/y of additional energy use for central air conditioners and air-source heat pumps in U.S. single-family detached homes, which is a 9% increase over baseline (no-fault) usage, costing homeowners approximately $2.5 billionmore »« less

Authors:

^[1]; Das, Saptarshi ^[1];

^[1];

^[1]

National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

Publication Date:: 2020-11-15

Research Org.:: National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Energy Efficiency Office. Building Technologies Office

OSTI Identifier:: 1660191

Report Number(s):: NREL/JA-5500-75261
Journal ID: ISSN 0306-2619; MainId:6254;UUID:52503fec-d9f5-e911-9c29-ac162d87dfe5;MainAdminID:16259

Grant/Contract Number:: AC36-08GO28308

Resource Type:: Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:: Applied Energy

Additional Journal Information:: Journal Volume: 278; Journal ID: ISSN 0306-2619

Publisher:: Elsevier

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Subject:: 32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION; air conditioner; building energy simulation; fault; heat pump; installation quality

Citation Formats


                    Winkler, Jonathan, Das, Saptarshi, Earle, Lieko, Burkett, Lena, Robertson, Joe, Roberts, Dave, and Booten, Chuck. Impact of installation faults in air conditioners and heat pumps in single-family homes on U.S. energy usage.  United States: N. p., 2020. 
Web.  doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.115533.

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                    Winkler, Jonathan, Das, Saptarshi, Earle, Lieko, Burkett, Lena, Robertson, Joe, Roberts, Dave, & Booten, Chuck. Impact of installation faults in air conditioners and heat pumps in single-family homes on U.S. energy usage.  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.115533

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                    Winkler, Jonathan, Das, Saptarshi, Earle, Lieko, Burkett, Lena, Robertson, Joe, Roberts, Dave, and Booten, Chuck. Sun .  
"Impact of installation faults in air conditioners and heat pumps in single-family homes on U.S. energy usage".  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.115533.  https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1660191.

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@article{osti_1660191,

  title        = {Impact of installation faults in air conditioners and heat pumps in single-family homes on U.S. energy usage},

  author       = {Winkler, Jonathan and Das, Saptarshi and Earle, Lieko and Burkett, Lena and Robertson, Joe and Roberts, Dave and Booten, Chuck},

  abstractNote = {To ensure that new residential air conditioners and heat pumps operate optimally, care must be taken during the initial system design and installation to avoid missteps that immediately degrade a system’s performance. Laboratory and simulation studies have quantified the impact that faults can have on capacity and efficiency. Field studies have demonstrated that installation-related faults are commonplace. However, the national impact of installation-related faults cannot be accurately estimated by only simulating a limited number of homes at several fault levels because of the variety of home characteristics and climates involved. In our analysis, we use an improved residential building stock simulation tool to predict the annual energy increase and additional utility costs resulting from two common installation faults: indoor airflow rate and refrigerant charge level. Our method considers the wide range of building characteristics and climate zones of the U.S. housing stock. We use existing field data to develop fault intensity probability distributions to inform our analysis. The study shows that these two faults result in approximately 20.7 TWh/y of additional energy use for central air conditioners and air-source heat pumps in U.S. single-family detached homes, which is a 9% increase over baseline (no-fault) usage, costing homeowners approximately $2.5 billion annually on utility bills. Air-source heat pumps are responsible for a disproportionate fraction of this energy use increase because of the larger number of operating hours compared to central air conditioners and the sensitivity of heating mode performance to the faults analyzed compared to cooling mode.},

  doi          = {10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.115533},

  journal      = {Applied Energy},

  number       = ,

  volume       = 278,

  place        = {United States},

  year         = {2020},

  month        = {11}

}

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Works referenced in this record:

Measured effect of airflow and refrigerant charge on the seasonal performance of an air-source heat pump using R-410A
journal, July 2011

Palmiter, Larry; Kim, Jun-Hyeung; Larson, Ben
Energy and Buildings, Vol. 43, Issue 7
DOI: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2011.03.026

Generalized effects of refrigerant charge on normalized performance variables of air conditioners and heat pumps
journal, April 2017

Mehrabi, Mehdi; Yuill, David
International Journal of Refrigeration, Vol. 76
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijrefrig.2017.02.014

Evaluating the performance of fault detection and diagnostics protocols applied to air-cooled unitary air-conditioning equipment
journal, July 2013

Yuill, David P.; Braun, James E.
HVAC&R Research, Vol. 19, Issue 7
DOI: 10.1080/10789669.2013.808135

Modeling of HVAC operational faults in building performance simulation
journal, September 2017

Zhang, Rongpeng; Hong, Tianzhen
Applied Energy, Vol. 202
DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.05.153

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Similar Records

Title: Impact of installation faults in air conditioners and heat pumps in single-family homes on U.S. energy usage

Abstract

Citation Formats

Measured effect of airflow and refrigerant charge on the seasonal performance of an air-source heat pump using R-410A journal, July 2011

Generalized effects of refrigerant charge on normalized performance variables of air conditioners and heat pumps journal, April 2017

Evaluating the performance of fault detection and diagnostics protocols applied to air-cooled unitary air-conditioning equipment journal, July 2013

Modeling of HVAC operational faults in building performance simulation journal, September 2017

Measured effect of airflow and refrigerant charge on the seasonal performance of an air-source heat pump using R-410A
journal, July 2011

Generalized effects of refrigerant charge on normalized performance variables of air conditioners and heat pumps
journal, April 2017

Evaluating the performance of fault detection and diagnostics protocols applied to air-cooled unitary air-conditioning equipment
journal, July 2013

Modeling of HVAC operational faults in building performance simulation
journal, September 2017