Hydronic Heat Pump Measure Development

The project proposes to develop new measure package inputs for air-to-water heat pumps (“AWHPs”) and/or heat recovery chillers as electrified successor technologies to conventional boiler and chiller systems in large commercial buildings. Building on prior market research and modeling efforts, this project will translate validated performance insights into measure package inputs for submission to the California Public Utilities Commission (“CPUC”).This project proposes to develop a comprehensive measure package plan for the top few offerings of AWHPs and heat recovery chillers (“HRCs”) as partial and full electrification strategies, and heat recovery for large commercial buildings. The approach leverages waste heat from building exhaust to supply hydronic heating, reducing gas use and improving system efficiency. Through modeling and field verification by leveraging existing data the project will quantify benefits and support measure package development, helping utilities advance high-efficiency, grid-responsive, and cost-effective decarbonization strategies.Expecting large impact on energy, operating costs and emissions, the commercially available technology is already being leveraged by designers, and ready for measure package implementation. By developing standardized performance metrics and program design framework and getting market and the California Technical Forum (“CalTF”) Measure Screening Committee (“MSC”) feedback, measure package inputs will be developed. The project will build on a prior measure development effort ET24SWE0036. The prior project developed a broad understanding of the measure landscape and produced a shortlist of high-priority offerings: air-to-water heat pumps replacing boilers in water source heat pump systems, and heat recovery chillers replacing water-cooled chillers as a partial electrification measure for buildings with available waste heat. This project proposes to build on the progress of ET24SWE0036 by advancing measure package adoption as recommended in CalNEXT Project ET24SWE0036.HRCs are systems that utilize waste heat from the condenser side for heating purposes. As an electrification strategy, they offer the potential to reduce operational carbon emissions associated with heating, while providing higher coefficient of performance (“COP”) than AWHPs and a much smaller equipment footprint. However, limited research has been published on the real-world performance of HRCs in this configuration. Furthermore, no utility programs exist to incentivize such technologies which are now ready for market adoption and have addressed many barriers to market transformation recently.AWHPs provide a broader electrification pathway for buildings replacing gas boilers. Both technologies represent the electrification successors to conventional chillers and boilers, taking the same fundamental equipment categories and equipping them for the decarbonization era. Together, they address a significant portion of large building heating loads in California without the distribution and temperature limitations that make other electrification technologies less feasible in retrofit applications.There is decade long precedent for chiller measures in deemed utility programs. This project will engage that directly, forming a well-supported opinion on where these measures belong and making that case to the CPUC, CalTF, and Investor-Owned Utilities (“IOUs”). The project will explore a hybrid approach between the deemed and custom pathways, identifying the most defensible and practical route to incentivization for each measure on the shortlist. A hybrid approach would create deemed building blocks in a customizable manner so a project could claim site specific savings quickly based on these deemed components.This project ties closely to work conducted under a parallel project titled Exhaust Air Mechanical Heat Recovery Field Evaluation and Measure Development. That project is focused on buildings with high ventilation rates, whereas this project is focused on other use cases.