Decarbonizing large commercial buildings through heat recovery

The Issue

Most all-electric systems for large commercial buildings rely on air-to-water heat pumps (AWHP) which have major limitations: high first costs, large space requirements, and generally poor energy efficiency. AWHPs can be difficult or even impossible to use for retrofitting large commercial buildings. An alternative is heat recovery chillers (HRCs), which generate chilled water and hot water simultaneously at much higher combined COPs, but require either simultaneous heating and cooling loads in the building or a separate heat source or sink. An overlooked opportunity for scalable decarbonization is partial electrification. The key is to deploy heat pumps appropriately and pair them effectively with other components in a system, prioritizing heat recovery and energy efficiency, thereby minimizing the need for heat pumps.