| Within a university/industry partnership, a new air-source heat pump technology that is optimized for cold climates was designed, fabricated, and evaluated at a National Guard base in Edinburgh, IN. Two Cold Climate Heat Pumps (CCHP) were installed into two separate but nearly identical barrack buildings. Each building had two zones; allowing one half to be heated by conventional methods (natural gas furnace) and the other half to be heated by the CCHP. The performance of each CCHP was directly compared to the natural gas furnace in terms of energy, cost, and environmental impact.;The field demonstration was successful in the sense that it provided proof of concept testing in a real world environment. Significant useful information was gained about component-level performance, system level component integration, and controls. On the basis of the limited testing so far, a reduction in primary energy use as compared to a natural gas furnace has not been achieved. This document discusses these findings and opportunities for further improvement. Long term, CCHP systems have significant potential for operational energy/cost savings over traditional methods of heating, particularly in areas where natural gas is not available. |
