UC Davis Energy and Efficiency Institute
Summary
Homes and businesses use over 25 percent of California’s energy. With a number of different space heating and cooling technologies available to developers, it is important to understand and quantify potential greenhouse gas (GHG) impacts.
A study, published by the UC Davis Western Cooling Efficiency Center (WCEC), analyzed the GHG emissions for two different heating and cooling options for a proposed development in Davis – the Davis Innovation Sustainability Campus (DiSC). Researchers analyzed GHG emissions for: 1) the proposed all-electric, high-efficiency design, which would use packaged heat pump equipment for heating and cooling the buildings and 2) a potential upgrade to an all-electric, very high efficiency design, which would use a district energy system. A district energy system uses a central plant heat pump and chiller to heat and cool water that is piped to buildings for heating and cooling.
“Based on predicted energy consumption data provided be Trane, we found that a district energy system could further improve energy efficiency by 26%, reduce total energy consumption by 14%, and reduce GHG emissions by 16% over the already highly efficient proposed design,” said lead researcher David Vernon, Co-Director of Engineering for the UC Davis Western Cooling Efficiency Center.
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