Palm Beach Gardens, Florida — Carrier has earned an A+ on its heat pump project from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Commercial Building HVAC Technology Challenge.
Carriers’ rooftop system met and exceeded the challenge requirements, which included heating capacity and energy efficiency test standards, scoring 100 per cent heating capacity at 5 F, exceeding 70 per cent heating capacity at -10 F and meeting or surpassing DOE’s commercial HVAC efficiency thresholds.
“This milestone is about performance that pays,” said Heidi Gehring, managing director, light commercial, at Carrier. “Customers can realize lower energy bills with reliable comfort, while utilities benefit from a more efficient system that helps support grid reliability. This achievement reflects the work of our talented engineering and product development teams, who delivered a solution that reduces energy intensity and operating costs while helping strengthen U.S. competitiveness in commercial buildings.”
Announced last year, the DOE’s Commercial Building HVAC Technology Challenge was introduced under the Better Buildings Commercial Building Heat Pump Accelerator. The commercial building challenge was designed to encourage corporations and manufacturers to create higher-efficiency and life-cycle cost-effective heat pump RTUs, and to enable commercial organizations to evaluate and adopt next-generation heat pump technology.
It is estimated that RTUs can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy costs by up to 50 per cent, compared to conventional RTUs. However, fewer than 15 per cent of commercial buildings in the U.S. currently have heat pumps.
The campaign aims to have energy-efficient heat pump RTU units available to the market by 2027. If deployed at scale, these RTUs could save American businesses and commercial entities $5 billion on utility bills yearly.