Navigating the North: A practical guide to successful residential HPWH implementation in Minnesota
Overview
Residential heat pump water heaters (HPHWs) have undergone extensive technical advancement over the past 10 years. Consistent improvement of efficiency and controls now enable this technology to exceed the performance of conventional tank water heaters by more than six-fold. Field experience across sectors in single-family and multifamily buildings, as well as in new construction and retrofits, suggests that many practitioners remain uncomfortable with HPWH systems despite the technology’s improvements.
In contrast to research results to date, two attitudes are prevalent: HPWHs are unfit for cold climates and HPWHs negatively impact their installed spaces to the detriment of building health and occupant comfort. Broader dissemination of the research results that directly refute these beliefs is necessary to overcome the adoption hurdles they pose. This project will close the gap between long-standing negative HPWH assumptions and data which proves their efficacy and cost-effectiveness in Minnesota homes.
Highlights
Objective
- Identify and summarize all relevant field, market, implementation, and program work in Minnesota, the upper Midwest, and nationally on HPWHs.
- Categorize all potential single-family and multifamily applications and the implementation challenges in Minnesota’s housing stock.
- Produce a guide to address barriers and outline prescriptive solutions and best practices to achieve savings, lower bills, and mitigate environmental and logistic concerns.
Scope
- Survey HPWH product improvements over the last 12 years.
- Focus research and solutions on the applicability of HPWHs in the upper Midwest, and more specifically, in the Minnesota housing stock.
Non-energy benefits
- Fuel-switching to HPWHs eliminates indoor air pollution risks, specifically the back-drafting of toxic combustion byproducts like carbon monoxide associated with naturally ventilated fossil fuel units.
- HPWHs provide dehumidification as a byproduct of heat extraction, offering significant air quality and comfort benefits in damp environments such as basements.
- Equipped with smart controls, modern HPWHs function as thermal batteries that can participate in demand response programs, shifting electrical loads to facilitate grid resilience.
Funding
This project was supported in whole by a grant from the Minnesota Department of Commerce, Division of Energy Resources through the Conservation Applied Research and Development (CARD) program.