Conference Year
2021
Keywords
Load-based Testing, Steady-State Testing, Air Conditioner, AHRI 210/240, CSA EXP07
Abstract
Space cooling and heating equipment account for nearly 32% of the total residential electricity consumption in the U.S. In the residential space conditioning equipment market, air-conditioning and heat-pumping systems are prevalent, so even a slight improvement in these system efficiencies can have a significant impact on reducing the overall energy consumption. Over the years, the energy efficiency benchmarks established by the U.S. Department of Energy have been successful in encouraging manufacturers to develop higher efficiency equipment. These benchmarks are based on an energy efficiency standard, and these standards are based on a rating test procedure that forms the technical basis. Currently, in the U.S., AHRI 210/240 is the rating procedure for residential air-conditioning and heat-pumping equipment, which is based on a steady-state performance measurement method with a degradation coefficient to account for the cycling losses in part-load conditions. Although it provides a standard metric to compare different equipment performances, there has been a debate that this current methodology fails to appropriately characterize the performance of systems with variable-speed compressors and advanced control design. This is largely attributed to the steady-state nature of this current testing approach, which also involves overriding the equipment native control. In contrast to this, a load-based testing methodology has been developed in which the equipment responds to a simulated virtual building load, and the system dynamic performance is measured with its integrated controls. The load-based testing methodology is described in detail by Hjortland and Braun (2019), Patil et al. (2018), and Cheng et al. (2021), which forms the basis for CSA standard draft EXP07:2019 (CSA, 2019). In this paper, these two performance measurement methodologies, steady-state and dynamic load-based, are compared for application to a 5ton residential heat-pump system. The equipment performance was measured in cooling mode and the seasonal performance estimates based on the two testing approaches are compared. The differences in the two test methodologies' performance evaluation results are discussed with a causal analysis of the observed differences.