April 30, 2012: Retrofits to Commercial Packaged Units Could Provide Substantial Energy Savings
RICHLAND, Wash. — Packaged air conditioners and heat pumps serve over 60 percent of the commercial building floor space in the nation, contributing to about 230 trillion Btu of energy consumption annually, according to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). Therefore, even a small increase in operational efficiency of these units can lead to significant reductions in energy use. PNNL, with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Building Technologies Program, announced that it has evaluated a number of control strategies that can be implemented in a controller, which can be retrofitted into an existing unit, to substantially improve the operational efficiency of packaged equipment.
The results from detailed simulation analysis show significant energy (24 percent to 35 percent) and cost savings (38 percent) from fan, cooling and heating energy consumption when packaged units are retrofitted with advanced control packages. The major findings include: