The Role of Gas Heat Pumps in Zero Net Energy Buildings - Paul Glanville and Ryan Kerr, Gas Technology Institute Chris Keinath and Michael Garrabrant, Stone Mountain Technologies Inc.

Heat is removed from the system in the refrigerant condenser, the absorber (where the refrigerant and sorbent are combined) and the condensing combusted gas heat exchanger. [...] The following study will investigate the source energy and cost savings of residences using GHP systems, and the reduction in renewable plant size and cost to achieve a ZNE building. [...] The Chicago site requires the largest array, in large part because the annual PV output is lowest for the Chicago site (Figure 5), and the trend from site to site is very similar. [...] The DC area site is close to breaking even in all cases and for the heating-dominated sites, the impact of low natural gas prices is apparent as the furnace cases (1/3/5) and GHP cases (7-9) have the greatest savings. [...] The study also highlights the impact of low natural gas prices and the importance of minimizing the electrical load of the GAHPs.