Reduce, reuse, re-source.

That’s the three-step process for achieving ESG (environmental, social, and governance) goals that Danfoss laid out at a press conference Tuesday, January 23, the second day of the 2024 AHR Expo in Chicago.

“With the rate of change in our industry — and in the world, for that matter — it's important for building owners to future-proof their buildings,” said Rick Sporrer, president – North America, Danfoss. “It's really a three-step process. The first step is around reducing our energy usage and improving our energy efficiency. Step two is reusing: How do we redirect, potentially, heat generated in one part of the business and use that same heat to control the climate in another building and other parts of the business. And the final step is re-sourcing, so converting our energy source from fossil fuels to a renewable source.

“I think we have to start with cities first,” Sporrer continued. “It's estimated that cities consume about two-thirds of global energy usage. And they contribute about 70% of the global carbon emissions.” Meanwhile, only about 2% of building stock turns over each year.

“So we can talk about ways to retrofit existing buildings on a mass scale, with more energy-efficient heating and cooling technologies that both improve function but also maintain comfort,” he continued. “It's estimated that if in the U.S. and Europe and China, if we updated all of the buildings to more energy-efficient heating and cooling systems ― just those three ― that that would have achieved about 20% of the goal of the 1.5°C temperature change already established by the Paris Agreement.”

Brian Dail, application engineer manager at Danfoss, laid out the role of heat pumps in decarbonization and future-proofing buildings, along with several challenges facing the industry during the transition to large-scale electrification. Danfoss’ answer to the decarbonization movement is the reversible heat pump chiller, which can reverse its circuit and, instead of pumping heat to the outside as waste heat, pump it into the water loop of a building for heating purposes.

One of the major challenges in the heat pump sector is the gap between heating and cooling loads.

“In many parts of the U.S., winters are colder than summers are hot,” he explained. “So there's an imbalance in the equipment between summer and winter.” Dail said variable-speed drives and variable-capacity compressors that can handle the difference.

Cold climates also have the effect of making compressors less efficient.

“And the reason for this is that as the average temperature drops, the coefficient of performance of a compressor drops off … the compressors have to pump harder, and that pumping harder means more electricity usage.” Some of the lost efficiency can be reclaimed through refrigerant-side economizers for vapor injection, Dail said; those economizers are made up of heat exchangers, valves, and controls.

Another challenge is that heat pumps generally produce lower water temperatures compared to boilers ― 140°F versus 180°F.

“And at low outdoor temperatures, those hot water temperatures are getting reduced even further,” Dail said. “Now, 140°F water is still plenty warm to heat a building. But it does need to be taken into account when that building is being designed or retrofitted.” Danfoss PSH and Turbocor TTH compressors maintain high water temperatures, even at subzero outdoor temperatures, Dail noted.

Danfoss’ DSG compressor was named Cooling Category winner in this year’s AHR Innovation Awards. The DSG features an innovative design to enable a smooth transition to low-pressure, low-GWP refrigerants.

A final challenge facing the industry is the difference between designed and installed efficiency.

“We know systems don't often perform at their full potential ― their energy consumption is higher than expected, which delays the return on investment,” Dail said. “The secondary side of the system, that's the water loop. It's affected by many dynamic factors that cause the pressure and flow changes to deviate from system design. So the solution is using variable-speed drives and pressure independent control valves to provide dynamic hydraulic balancing that stabilizes pressure and flow deviations to improve system efficiency.

“And doing this can also extend the entire life of a pump system by regulating flow differences between expected performance and the real world,” he continued. “Performance is not a new thing. If you talk to any HVAC engineers, service technicians, building owners that have been around a while, they'll all have stories of things that didn't perform exactly as they expected once integrated into the field. That's been the case for technologies for a long time. And the important thing is that we pay attention to those challenges, work towards them, and come up with the right solutions, so that electrification results in the same as we're all looking for.”

At the end of the press conference, Danfoss announced a strategic partnership with Google on AI and energy efficiency, with particular focus on the water-energy-carbon nexus. Under the partnership, Danfoss will use Google Cloud’s generative AI capabilities to optimize the customer experience, streamline internal work processes, and improve productivity across the organization, according to a press release from the company.

“There's a massive opportunity to take data center heat, which is generally viewed as a waste product — you turn that into a low-carbon heat source for communities, homes, office buildings, and also pursue applications … such as personal vertical farming operations, aquaponics, and a variety of other use cases,” said Ben Townsend, global head of data center sustainability, Google. “With cooling products making anywhere between 10-30% of data center industry energy consumption, we see this as a massive opportunity for both driving reduction in environmental footprints, as well as expanding circular economy applications.”

Danfoss also previewed its new Al smart controller platform, which launched at AHR Expo.