Here is a thought experiment concept paper looking for team partners for a $1.5M grant focused on NY coops and munis. It is about starting letting go of old frameworks of scarcity and starting to do something really different things with both HVAC and the electric grid.

OVERVIEW

This project will turn a successful cold climate air-to-water heat pump thermal storage prototype into a scalable product. It will deliver a premanufactured plug-and-play Flow Control Manifold that will reduce first-costs by $5k.  It will demonstrate how a self-scaling coordination of space heating systems in several buildings consumes all its energy in very low priced hours and is capable of predicting and matching periods of curtailed renewables.  The commercialization capstone will be a Thermal Storage Heat program (tariff and subsidy) saving everybody money by incentivizing thermal storage correctly, and bringing on board a coop/muni partner prepared to commit to the program subject to the project meeting its technical milestones.

IMPACT

New York state has the goal of 85% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and a 100% renewable electricity grid by 2040. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 85% will require rapid adoption of heat pumps for space conditioning, removing the ~40% of greenhouse gasses that are produced by building fossil fuel consumption. A 100% renewable electricity grid will require energy storage and load shifting controls to overcome the fundamental challenge that renewable production and building consumption are often mismatched.

This project will support both goals through commercialization of grid-interactive, residential air-to-water heat pump (AWHP) plus thermal energy storage (TES) systems. AWHP + TES systems provide an alternative to air-to-air heat pumps (AAHPs) which 1) perform at higher COP at part loads, 2) access cheap wholesale prices and 3) support grid stability. The load-shifting controls, responding to time-varying wholesale electricity prices, will simultaneously offer large reductions in operating costs and empower homes to access abundant renewable power. The Efficiency Maine Trust (EMT)’s Hydronic Heat Pump with Thermal Storage Solutions project showed last winter that the proposed AWHP + TES design can lower the cost by over $1,100 per year over AWHPs without storage, and this is just on an old-school time of use tariff that fails to match variable low prices.  These cost reductions and contributions to grid stability will support adoption of heat pumps and convert them from an impending grid challenge into a grid solution. 

By 2030, a conservative analysis of just NYS shows a large market for intelligent thermal storage heat. With 1.5M single-family homes and 1.4M multifamily apartment units, assuming 10% will be retrofitted with AWHP with 10 kW of shiftable load per unit,  the residential building sector can offer 2.8 GW of aggregated load shift capability by 2030. This is over 13% of NYISO’s current average winter load.

INNOVATION

Wholesale prices variability is increasing as we shift into a world of intermittent, cheap electricity. More specifically there is an increasing fraction of low- and even negatively- priced MWhs in all locations with significant wind or solar. The problem we face right now is a matrix of scarcity frameworks that inhibit us from taking advantage of abundance: indeed there is so little interest in this precious, zero-marginal-cost energy that it has to pay in order to run. This project delivers a) a scalable load that can pay attention to and use this abundant energy and 2) a demo where somebody gets the benefit and has the correct incentive to pay for and share it.    

First Innovation: Heat pumps taking advantage of abundance. Traditional heat pumps without storage are uncontrollable and problematic for the grid. TES changes that, at least when it is coupled with large-enough-sized AWHPs and grid interactive controls capable of capturing the value of intermittent abundance.  On the coldest day of last winter, the first AWHP + TES system that Moscone HVAC installed in Millinocket kept its house warm with no electricity for 5 hours straight.  Controls come from GridWorks, a team  that has built, deployed and operated grid-interactive aggregated thermal storage heat for more than a decade. The resulting grid interactions, primarily but not only the wholesale market, will be highly lucrative for the municipal electric utility /electric cooperative partner – enough to warrant attractive financing/subsidies and an appropriate tariff.

Second Innovation: Prefabricated Flow Control Manifold (FCM). The FCM contains all pumps, valves, sensors and actuators necessary to control an AWHP + TES system with grid-interactive controls. A modular FCM allows easy installation by HVAC professionals, reducing costs and enabling scalability.  

Third Innovation:  Storage heat program incentivizing the use of clean cheap electricity. Meeting New York’s electrification targets will require taking advantage of cheap, intermittent electricity. For munis and coops this is possible without regulatory change.  First, they can accrue almost all of the benefit of beneficial load shifting as they already settle hourly on  the real-time wholesale market via their own interval master meters. (This aggregated load not only saves on the energy bill, it allows them to serve much more load with minimal upgrades required to their existing distribution system. ) Second, they have an easier path to implement tariffs and programs for their customers, which means they can provide an up-front subsidy and tariff package that both makes the system attractive to customers and provides a solid ROI for the subsidy. Partnering with munis/coops is a wise commercial strategy,  as they serve >25% of residential customers. Success here will also support regulators and investor-owned utilities  implementing changes needed for across-the-board adoption.

STATE OF THE ART

New York’s goal of 5 trillion BTUs from heat pumps by 2025 is driving rapid adoption of these systems. However, current heat pump implementations (both AAHP and AWHP) lack the capability to “access the abundance” of intermittent, cheap renewable energy. As the cost of renewables subsidies and of renewables integration are being loaded onto energy and distribution tariffs, the cost of operating heat pumps (and other electrified appliances and vehicles) are rising and will continue to do so. We need to encourage the installation of devices that can use intermittent cheap energy, without disrupting consumer lifestyles and without the enormous cost of electro-chemical batteries. AWHP+water-based TES with grid-interactive optimization is the most promising technology available to do this. Any device that is able to use cheap renewables, and puts no additional peak load on the distribution system should be eligible for a lower energy and distribution tariffs. Demonstrating to utilities and regulators the ability to lower the costs of electrification is an essential deliverable of this project.

The GridWorks principals founded VCharge in 2010, a company that developed cloud-based controls to minimize the operating cost of fleets of resistive electric thermal storage heaters accessing low electricity prices. These controls accessed realtime wholesale prices in ISO-NE and PJM, enabling the company to offer a 25% rebate on the cost of home heating to its customers. With support from EMT and DOE GridWorks has started transferring the controls to AWHP + TES systems. Applying these controls to AWHP + TES system could reduce NYS peak load by 2.8 GW. NYS now has the opportunity to further develop the technologies and innovations, followed by necessary regulation and policy changes.

The project will build on a prototype system deployed in two homes by The Efficiency Maine Trust 2023/2024 winter, with plans to install in another five homes in 2024/2025. The heating system uses off-the-shelf components  and was designed by  Moscone HVAC and John Siegenthaler among others. The control system was developed by GridWorks, entirely re-writing the VCharge control algorithms and optimizing them for heat pumps and water-based thermal storage.

To support large-scale adoption and reduce the upfront costs of these systems, we plan to:

  • Work with the trades:  Customize the current Maine-based designs to the New York context. This involves establishing a strong relationship with the right local HVAC partner as well as socialization within existing supply chains and  program advancement & design processes that can help clear regulatory barriers and provide incentives for adoption.

  • Improve the hardware: Design a Flow Control Manifold  to make the current system more modular & scalable. A premanufactured FCM, shown schematically in Figure 1 above, will dramatically reduce the installed cost of these systems. (Installation and fittings for the two custom-designed flow controllers in Maine cost over $10,000 each. A pre-manufactured FCM should have an installed cost of under $5,000.)

RISKS AND CHALLENGES

Institutional Challenges: The principal challenges facing this innovation are institutional:

  • HVAC wholesalers are unfamiliar with emerging AWHPs and rarely stock the necessary parts;

  • Existing HP subsidization structures only allow for heat pumps that don’t work with storage;

  • Current demand response programs focus on peak shaving (scarcity!), which does not provide financial incentives for consuming excess renewable power and avoiding curtailment.

Technical and Execution Risks: The time frame is tight for manufacturing the FCM and finding demo homes has some risk.  As written, the concept paper hinges on partnering with a NYAPP member.  A backup plan is to deploy on the Steuben Electric Coop Schedule 1A time of use tariff for Electric Thermal Storage heating systems and supporting them in changing their program during the project.

  1. PROJECT PLAN

Feasibility Stage: The feasibility stage will identify our HVAC partner, initial customers as well as roll-out potential.

  • Assessment: Find a great HVAC partner via networking and word of mouth. Evaluate suitability of residential building characteristics in partner’s service territory.

  • Model-Based Design: Optimize FLO and other models  to match New York current and future availability of residential wholesale settlement on actual metered use, current and future prices, buildings, and climate. Evaluate potential operation cost savings and payback periods.

  • Prototype Development: Create a first version of the prototype system customized to New York State homes. Install prototype system in 1 house.

Development Stage: The development stage focuses on reducing first costs. 

  • Flow Control Manifold: Design the plug-and-play FCM, reducing install time and difficulty.

  • Forward-Looking Optimizer: Identify low cost, rapid response, accurate sensors for the FLO.

Demonstration Stage: The demonstration stage will show the ability of the system installed in 2-3 homes to demonstrate annual savings.

  • Field Monitoring: Identify 2-3 sites volunteering to deploy the technology. Install and commission the system in those homes. Monitor performance for 12+ months.

Commercialization Assessment: Utility  partner committed to scale in their territory if  technology milestones are met.