TECHNICAL FEATURE

This article was published in ASHRAE Journal, October 2021. Copyright 2021 ASHRAE. Posted at www.ashrae.org. This article may not be copied and/or distributed
electronically or in paper form without permission of ASHRAE. For more information about ASHRAE Journal, visit www.ashrae.org.

Solving the Large

Building All-Electric
Heating Problem
BY BRANDON GILL, P.E., MEMBER ASHRAE

The push for building HVAC electrification1 (i.e., eliminating on-site fossil fuel
consumption) poses new challenges for heating large buildings and campuses in a
practical and efficient way. Common small- and medium-building all-electric solu-
tions such as air-to-air heat pumps and variable refrigerant flow systems do not
scale well for large building applications, and most existing large-building solutions
require compromises. One novel solution, time-independent energy recovery (TIER),
is an all-electric central plant design that combines thermal energy storage and
energy recovery to improve on existing alternatives for large commercial and mixed-
use buildings with respect to energy efficiency, cost-effectiveness, equipment spatial
requirements and support of grid-interactive efficient building initiatives.
State of the Market • Heat recovery chillers, which generate chilled water
Currently, four primary options exist in the market for and hot water simultaneously, but require either simul-
generating heat using electricity for large buildings: taneous heating and cooling loads in the building or a
• Air-source (air-to-water) heat pumps, which gener- separate heat source or sink.
ate hot water using heat extracted from ambient air via Each of these options is fraught with one or more
the vapor compression refrigeration cycle; major challenges related to equipment and installation
• Electric boilers, which rely on electric resistance costs, spatial requirements, energy efficiency and car-
heat to generate hot water; bon emissions.
• Wire-to-air electric resistance coils, which are
typically used at the zone level in terminal units such as Air-Source Heat Pumps
variable air volume (VAV) and fan-powered boxes; and Air-source heat pumps (ASHPs) are probably the most
carbon-friendly option on the market that does not rely
Brandon Gill, P.E., is a principal of Taylor Engineering in Alameda, Calif. He is a voting member of ASHRAE TCs 1.4 and 8.2 and was one of the principal researchers for ASHRAE
RP-1711.

12 ASHRAE JOURNAL ashrae.org O CTO B E R 2021

 TECHNICAL FEATURE

on heat recovery. In Santa Clara, Calif., where the design FIGURE 1 Cooling full-load efficiency of typical water-cooled and ASHP chiller
heating temperature is 29°F (-2°C), one market leader’s plants.
product yields a heating coefficient of performance
(COPh) of approximately 2.1 when generating 120°F 1.26
(49°C) water at design ambient dry bulb. 1.4
The efficiency of heat pumps is highly dependent on 1.2
ambient air temperatures. While a design COPh above 2 1.0 0.61
is possible in mild west coast climates where the author 0.8

kW/Ton
practices, efficiency and capacity both drop rapidly as 0.6
ambient temperature falls. Currently available air-to- 0.4
water heat pumps cannot generally be used when ambi- 0.2
0.0 Water-Cooled Chillers, Towers, Air-Source HP/Chillers
ent temperatures are below about 0°F (-18°C) while
Condenser Water Pumps
producing hot water of approximately 120°F (–49°C)
(assuming R-410A refrigerant).
ASHPs are also very expensive per unit capacity Contrast this with a well-designed water-cooled chiller
(roughly $150/MBH to $200/MBH [$511 000/MW to plant that operates at about 0.60 kW/ton to 0.65 kW/ton
$682 000/MW] vs. $15/MBH to $30/MBH [$51 000 MW to (0.17 kW/kW to 0.18 kW/kW) or 5.4 COP to 5.9 COP at
$102 000 MW] for high quality condensing gas boilers). design conditions, including condenser water pumps
And, because they use ambient air to extract heat, they (CWP) and cooling towers. This reality makes it almost
require multiple units with large footprints to generate impossible to comply with either ASHRAE Standard
heat at scale. On large high-rise projects, it can be nearly 90.1-20192 or California Title 243 using the performance
impossible to find sufficient roof space for ASHPs. approach when replacing water-cooled plant cooling
The use of multiple units in large installations neces- capacity with ASHP capacity since the baseline cooling
sitates costly piping and controls for each unit. Most system for large buildings under both standards is a
ASHPs on the market have very high minimum flow chiller plant with water-cooled plant variable speed cen-
rates, which usually requires providing a primary pump trifugal chillers.
dedicated to each unit, further adding to first costs. Figure 1 shows a typical efficiency comparison. On one
ASHP plants are also likely to experience higher ongoing recent project where our company used AHSPs for heat-
maintenance costs than other plant options because of ing, we were able to use part of the available ASHP cool-
the quantity of devices involved and the complexity of ing capacity to provide 30% of the design cooling plant
the equipment itself; large ASHPs typically have four to capacity, with the rest provided by a high-efficiency all-
six scroll compressors, at least two refrigeration circuits variable speed water-cooled plant; using any more of the
and multiple condenser fan motors, increasing the like- ASHPs in cooling mode resulted in not complying with
lihood of some device failing or requiring service. code and increasing energy costs.
One benefit of ASHP designs is that almost all ASHPs
inherently can provide cooling as well as heating; they Electric Resistance
require the ability to defrost the outdoor coils when Electric resistance-based electric heating options such
operating in cool weather, which is usually accom- as electric boilers and wire-to-air coils do not present
plished by reversing the cycle, i.e., becoming a chiller. the same spatial or mechanical first-cost challenges
Thus, ASHPs can switch to cooling mode in the summer, as ASHPs. Relative to ASHP plants, which are typically
reducing the size of the cooling plant serving the same limited to supply temperatures of around 120°F (49°C),
building and offsetting some of the first cost from the electric boilers can generate 160°F to 180°F (71°C to
ASHPs. Unfortunately, currently available ASHPs are 82°C) supply temperatures like conventional natural gas
not very efficient in cooling mode, commonly yielding boiler plants, and thus can benefit from the higher hot
efficiencies of about 9.5 EER to 10 EER (1.2 kW/ton to water delta Ts (e.g., 40°F [22°C]) and smaller pipe and
1.3 kW/ton [0.34 kW/kW to 0.37 kW/kW] or 2.8 COP to pumps sizes that result from supplying hotter water.
2.9 COP) at AHRI Standard 550/590 conditions.

O CTO B E R 2021 ashrae.org ASHRAE JOURNAL 13

TECHNICAL FEATURE

Another major benefit of zone-level electric resistance earth, and the heat needed to warm the building in cold
heating coils is that they eliminate parasitic pipe heat winter weather is extracted from the earth. However,
losses inherent to all water-based designs. Preliminary geothermal bore fields for large buildings are extremely
research4 indicates these losses can be as large as the expensive to install, especially when site limitations
amount of heat needed for space conditioning. require deep bores, and are prone to performance deg-
Both electric resistance design strategies are, however, radation over time when the heating and cooling loads
limited by thermodynamics to a peak COPh of 1. Even in are not well balanced.
states like California, which generates much of its elec-
tricity from zero-carbon wind, solar and hydro plants, Summary
the grid is not low-carbon in the early morning when The current market presents owners with two medio-
heating systems peak. Resistance heating options are cre options for all-electric heating and cooling systems:
therefore likely to remain worse than natural gas boilers either accept the large space requirements and high first
on a carbon basis in at least the near term in most parts costs inherent to ASHPs, or select an electric resistance
of the country after accounting for generation, transmis- option that increases energy cost and may yield worse
sion and distribution losses. carbon performance than a natural gas boiler plant for
Electric resistance options can additionally present the foreseeable future while electricity is still primarily
new challenges to electrical engineers by making build- generated from fossil fuels. Current applications with
ings winter-peaking instead of summer-peaking. This heat recovery chillers are limited or are prohibitively
is particularly an issue in cold climates, but winter- expensive when coupled with geothermal systems.
peaking can also occur with electric resistance heating
options in mild west coast climates. Not only will winter- The Solution
peaking increase building electrical service sizes vs. cur- The key to solving these issues, as indicated by
rent practice, but the entire utility distribution system MacCracken,6 is coupling thermal energy storage (TES)
would have to be up-sized at considerable expense.5 with heat recovery. TES has long been used as an HVAC
Code compliance can also be an issue with electric strategy for peak shifting, primarily as a cost-saving
resistance heating systems. ASHRAE Standard 90.1- strategy through reduced demand and peak utility
2019’s Energy Cost Budget Method, for instance, allows charges, but rarely as an energy recovery mechanism.
electric resistance heat but puts the proposed design Multiple versions of thermal energy storage systems
up against a fan-powered box system baseline with exist, including:
zero reheat. California Title 24 prescriptively prohibits • Condenser water (CW) storage (stratified and un-
electric resistance with few exceptions and does not stratified)
include electric resistance heat in any of its performance • Hot water (HW) storage;
method baseline system types. • Chilled water (CHW) storage;
• Ice storage; and
Heat Recovery Chillers • Phase-change material (PCM) storage;
Another alternative is to use heat recovery chillers Combining TES with energy recovery leads to the con-
that can provide high-efficiency simultaneous heating cept of time-independent energy recovery (TIER), an all-
and cooling when concurrent heating and cooling loads electric central plant design that improves on the exist-
exist. In most applications this condition does not occur ing alternatives for large commercial and mixed-use
when heating loads are at their highest. When heat- buildings with respect to energy efficiency, cost effec-
ing loads are high (e.g., on a cold winter day or during tiveness, equipment spatial requirements and support
morning warm-up), there is typically little or no cooling of grid-interactive efficient building (GEB) initiatives.
load because cold ventilation outdoor air provides all the All TIER plants have three components in common: a
cooling needed. The time-dependency issue with heat TES component, an energy recovery component (heat
recovery chillers is sometimes addressed with geother- recovery chillers) and a trim heat source component
mal heat exchange systems, wherein heat absorbed from (usually ASHPs, but these can be electric boilers in
the building in warm summer weather is rejected to the cold climates or where roof space is limited). When

14 ASHRAE JOURNAL ashrae.org O CTO B E R 2021

TECHNICAL FEATURE

FIGURE 2 Direction of heat transfer for a hot water TIER system. FIGURE 3 Direction of heat transfer for a condenser water TIER system.

High Efficiency
Hot Water Centrifugal
Cooling
TES Tower
Water-Cooled Heat
Water-Cooled Recovery
Two-Pipe Heat Recovery Screw Condenser
Screw High Chiller
Air-Source Chiller Efficiency Water TES
Heat Pump Centrifugal Two-Pipe
Air-Source
CHW HW CW Heat Pump CHW HW CW

combined, these elements allow efficient water-to-water recovery chillers can be indexed to the chilled water loop
chillers to perform heat recovery even when heating to provide cooling. Figure 3 illustrates the energy flow
and cooling loads are not simultaneous, as is done with paths for the condenser water storage system design.
a geothermal system, while avoiding the high costs
and temperature degradation inherent to geothermal Understanding Condenser Water TIER
designs. The remainder of this article focuses on condenser
Though perhaps initially nonintuitive, each TES water as the storage medium of choice to illustrate the
approach can be used to store energy for heating irre- benefits of TIER since we believe condenser water is the
spective of whether the medium is 130°F (54°C) hot best option for many applications. Many of the subse-
water, 80°F (27°C) condenser water or 32°F (0°C) ice. quent benefits also apply to other TIER TES schemes, but
The first two will be used to illustrate this concept. In a all approaches are not equal. Pros and cons of alterna-
design with a hot water storage tank, trim ASHPs (which tive TES strategies are discussed at the end of the article.
are only sized for a fraction of design heating load), The condenser water TIER plants we have designed
charge the hot water tank throughout a heating design take heat rejected from cooling loads via high-efficiency,
day. Heat recovery chillers also charge the tank by pull- low-lift, centrifugal chillers and store it in a TES tank
ing any available heat from the chilled water loop and at tepid temperatures between 60°F (16°C) and 80°F
rejecting it to the tank. During winter mornings when (27°C). Tank temperature excursions down to 40°F
the building is heating dominated, the tank discharges; (4.4°C) are allowed on peak heating days to minimize
in the afternoon when combined building heat recovery tank size.
and trim ASHP capacity exceeds heating load, the tank When energy is needed for building heating, heat
charges. Figure 2 illustrates the energy flow paths for the is extracted from the tank using water-to-water heat
hot water storage system design. recovery chillers. In effect, the cooling chillers and heat
In a condenser water storage design, trim air-source recovery chillers are placed in a cascade configuration:
heat pumps, which are again only sized for a fraction of the cooling chillers have a lift envelope of 40°F (4.4°C)
design heating load, charge the condenser water tank chilled water supply temperature to 80°F (27°C) con-
throughout a cold day with tepid 80°F (27°C) water. denser water leaving temperature, while the heat recov-
Heat rejection loads from the condenser side of chillers ery chillers have a lift envelope of 60°F (16°C) evaporator
in “cooling mode” also charge the tank with 80°F (27°C) supply temperature to the active hot water supply tem-
water. During winter mornings when the building is perature setpoint, typically 110°F (43°C) to 140°F (60°C)
heating dominated, the tank discharges as heat recovery for all-electric designs.
chillers extract more heat from the tank than the ASHPs, During most days in California’s mild climate zones
and any chillers in “cooling mode” reject to the tank; where the author practices, the energy recovered from
in the afternoon, when combined chilled water heat cooling loads alone can satisfy heating loads. During
rejection load and trim ASHP capacity exceeds building the small fraction of the year when heat recovery alone
heating load, the tank charges. In the summer, the heat

16 ASHRAE JOURNAL ashrae.org O CTO B E R 2021

TECHNICAL FEATURE

FIGURE 4 Cool day morning operation of a condenser water TIER system.

42°F Cooling
Towers
CHWS & R
66°F

60°F
Tower
80°F
Pumps
Trim Heat ASHPs HR CW
Cooling Heat Pumps
Cond

Cond
Evap

Evap
Cond

Cond
Evap

Evap

Only vs. Recovery

Centrifugal Screw

70°F 80°F
80°F

TES Tank
100°F HX

HWS & R
60°F
130°F CW
Two-Position Pumps
Modulating
CHW HW CW

cannot satisfy heating demand, trim ASHPs are used to cooling-only chiller and the ASHPs are adding to the
charge the storage tank. tank is less than the amount of heat the red heat recov-
Figures 4, 5 and 6, which are simplified and adapted ery chillers are removing from the tank, so on balance
from a project for which we used a condenser water TIER the tank is discharging (decreasing in temperature).
design, show an example plant in a few typical modes of Later during the same day, when heating loads
operation to illustrate the design concept.* Flow paths decrease and cooling loads increase, the net result is that
for chilled water (CHW), condenser water (CW) and hot the tank charges (increases in average temperature).
water (HW) are traced in each. During the example condition in Figure 5, only one red
Figure 4 illustrates a typical cold morning operation heat recovery chiller is providing heating while drawing
condition during which the TES tank discharges. Both energy from the TES tank. Two-cooling only blue chillers
red heat recovery chillers are in operation, supplying are cooling the building in a series configuration while
hot water to the building at 130°F (54°C) on the con- head pressure control on the condenser side is modulat-
denser side while extracting heat from the TES tank on ing flow through the cooling-only machines’ condenser
the evaporator side. Any cooling loads that the building barrels to achieve the target condenser water leaving
might have—e.g., due to 24/7 IT spaces, data centers, lab temperature of 80°F (27°C) needed to charge the tank.
equipment, etc.—are concurrently addressed by a blue The air-source heat pumps are off because BAS logic
variable speed “cooling-only” machine. The condenser has determined that heat rejection loads alone will be
water rejected from this machine, which is 70°F (21°C) sufficient to charge the tank by the end of the business
in this example, is then passed through the trim ASHPs, day, i.e., bring the tank up to an average temperature of
which act to boost the condenser water charging the top about 80°F (27°C).
of the tank to 80°F (27°C). The amount of heat the blue
*Astute readers may notice that the TES tank, which is open to the atmosphere, is not hydraulically isolated from the closed-loop chilled
water and hot water systems. This plant was designed for a low-rise campus of two buildings where the tank was readily located near
the high point of the campus to avoid the energy waste that would have otherwise been incurred by introducing pressure-sustaining
valves. When atmospheric TES tanks are used in high-rise applications, they must be installed low to be structurally feasible; hydrauli-
cally isolating them with heat exchangers avoids pressure-sustaining requirements.

18 ASHRAE JOURNAL ashrae.org O CTO B E R 2021

 TECHNICAL FEATURE

FIGURE 5 Cool day afternoon operation of a condenser water TIER system.

42°F Cooling
Tower
CHWS & R
66°F

60°F
54°F 80°F Tower
Pumps
HR CW
Trim Heat ASHPs Pumps
Cooling Heat
Cond

Cond
Cond

Cond
Evap

Evap
Evap

Evap

Only vs. Recovery

Centrifugal Screw

70°F 80°F 80°F

TES Tank
HX
100°F
HWS & R
130°F 60°F
Two-Position
Modulating CW Pumps
CHW HW CW

FIGURE 6 Warm day afternoon operation of a condenser water TIER system.

42°F Cooling
Towers
CHWS & R
66°F

60°F
54°F 80°F Tower
Pumps
HR CW
Heat Trim Heat ASHPs Pumps
Cooling
Cond

Cond

Cond
Cond

Recovery
Evap

Evap
Evap

Evap

Only vs.
Screw 87°F
Centrifugal
87°F

79°F 87°F
84°F
TES Tank
100°F HX

HWS & R 69°F

130°F 71°F
Two-Position
Modulating CW Pumps
72°F
CHW HW CW

Figure 6 shows a high cooling load condition as might evaporator side to the chilled water loop while rejecting
occur during the afternoon of a warm day. In this sce- heat at low lift to the condenser water loop. Any build-
nario, one of the red heat recovery chillers has been ing heating loads are served by the one remaining heat
indexed into “cooling mode” and is connected on the recovery chiller indexed to the hot water loop. A mixing

O CTO B E R 2021 ashrae.org ASHRAE JOURNAL 19

TECHNICAL FEATURE

valve upstream of the heat recovery chiller evapo- FIGURE 7 Tank discharge profile, TIER design with two 1,765 kBtu/h ASHPs.
rator inlets (shown and boxed in yellow) prevents
water warmer than 80°F (27°C) from entering the 8,000 35,000
heating heat recovery chiller’s evaporator bar- 6,000
30,000
4,000
rel as is required by many chiller manufacturers
2,000 25,000
for continuous operation. Since the day is warm, 0
morning heating loads were small, meaning the 20,000

kBtu/h
–2,000

kBtu
tank is already fully charged by early afternoon. –4,000 15,000
Therefore, all excess heat is rejected through the –6,000
cooling towers, which are isolated with a heat –8,000 10,000
exchanger to prevent dirty tower water from –10,000
5,000
–12,000
entering the tank or the chilled or hot water loops.
–14,000 0
These three schematics illustrate three of many 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
possible modes of operation for this plant. For Tank Charge (kBtu) Tank Energy Draw (kBtu/h) ASHP Trim Heat to Tank (kBtu/h)
instance, it is possible to index valves such that Building Cooling Load and Cooling Chiller Compressor Heat (kBtu/h)
heat recovery chillers reject heat from the chilled Note that the peak tank energy draw is less than the design heating load because heat recovery chiller
water loop directly to the hot water loop. Such a compressor energy makes up the difference.
configuration might be optimal when loads are
fairly balanced between the chilled water and
hot water loops; otherwise, it will result in serving the Designers can manipulate tank size by providing more
cooling load at higher lift than necessary (e.g., if there or less trim heat source capacity. The more trim heat
are 200 tons (703 kW) of cooling load but only 50 tons source capacity is available, the smaller the tank can be
(176 kW) of heating load), in which case operating in while riding through sustained heating peaks. But as
one of the other aforementioned modes is preferable. the tank gets smaller, some of the opportunities for heat
Reviewing all operating modes is beyond the scope of recovery are lost and plant efficiency gets worse. Since
this article, but this discussion hopefully conveys the providing more tank capacity generally reduces overall
flexibility this plant configuration provides to optimize project costs and improves plant efficiency, tank capac-
operational efficiency under a variety of heating and ity should be maximized to the extent that spatial and
cooling load conditions. project aesthetic constraints allow.
At a certain point, however, there is no value in
The Benefits of TIER increasing tank size further since doing so will not yield
Spatial Requirements additional reductions in trim heat source size. This is so
While TES designs are often thought of as space because the amount of heat required to warm a building
intensive, the TIER solution is a space saver relative to over a 24-hour peak heating day does not change irre-
a conventional ASHP plant. This is because load shift- spective of the amount of load shifting the tank can pro-
ing allows the TIER design to reduce ASHP capacity vide—heat recovery and trim heat must meet that load
dramatically. over a 24-hour period.
A traditional TES tank is used for cooling peak shifting, In the real example below, two ASHPs totaling
not for heat recovery, and is typically sized to either ride 3,530 kBtu/h (1 MW) of capacity at near design ambi-
through the utility peak period without running chill- ent dry bulb of 36°F (2.2°C) were proposed along with a
ers or trim some fraction of chiller capacity throughout condenser water tank providing 31,200 kBtu (9.1 MWh)
that period. A TIER TES tank is sized to ensure that on a of storage for a 1.1 million ft2 (102 000 m2) office/dry
design heating day, heating loads can be met during all computer lab complex with a design heating load of
hours of the day using the available heat recovered from approximately 16,000 kBtu/h (4.7 MW). A 110,000 gallon,
the building(s) and trim heat source energy added to the 50 ft tall, 20 ft diameter (416 000 L, 15 m tall, 6 m diam-
tank. eter) tank was selected for the project. Figure 7 shows a

20 ASHRAE JOURNAL ashrae.org O CTO B E R 2021

TECHNICAL FEATURE

simplified charge and discharge profile for this FIGURE 8 1.1 million ft2 building conventional ASHP FIGURE 9 1.1 million ft2 building TIER
scheme on a design day. farm. TES tank and ASHP alternative.
The TIER design allowed us to provide two 76 ft, 6 in. 30 ft, 6 in.
ASHPs totaling 3,530 kBtu/h (1 MW) where 10
ASHPs totaling over 16,000 kBtu/h (4.7 MW)
would have otherwise been required. The rela-

59 ft, 0 in.

53 ft, 6 in.
tive footprints of these two designs are shown
in Figure 8 and Figure 9.
TES Tank
TIER TES tanks are invariably taller than
the ASHPs they replace (height is desirable to
improve tank storage efficiency since thermal
stratification yields a thermocline
EQUATION 1 Cascaded chiller heating efficiency.
of at least a few feet in height; the
shorter the tank the more volume is 1
trapped in the thermocline, and thus COPh Cascade =
1
the greater the total tank volume must 1−
be)—40 ft (12 m) taller in this case 1 COPh heat recovery chiller
study—so finding an optimal location +
COPh heat recovery chiller COPh cooling chiller
for the tank can be a challenge.
We have thus far found success
siting these tanks in parking garages. Typically, the more time down from 60°F (16°C) to 40°F (4.4°C). The
TES tank is smaller than the fire water storage tank overall delta T with the TIER design is therefore 40°F
needed for a high-rise. On one high-rise we have been (22°C), allowing for a compact tank.
preliminarily approved to use the TES tank as the fire
water tank, further reducing project costs and spatial Efficiency
requirements. The condenser water TIER solution—and all TIER
Spatial analyses also illustrate one of the unique ben- approaches for that matter—are significantly more
efits of condenser water TIER relative to other forms energy efficient than a conventional ASHP plant.
of TIER, including HW and CHW: while a HW or CHW Consider first that the IPLV of a typical variable speed
TES tank’s capacity is limited by the delta T of the loads centrifugal chiller that would be used to cool a large
it serves, a condenser water tank serves as a source for building and charge the TES tank in a TIER design is on
heat recovery chillers, so it can have a much higher delta the order of 0.35 kW/ton (0.10 kW/kW); this corresponds
T. For a CHW TES system, delta T is typically in the range to a COPh of 11. The COPh of heat recovery chillers boost-
of 18°F to 25°F (11°C to 14°C). A HW TES tank storing ing water from 60°F to 125°F (16°C to 52°C) should be
120°F (49°C) water achievable by the ASHPs trim chang- greater than 5. The cascaded COPh is therefore roughly
ing the tank might similarly be limited to a 25°F (14°C) 3.7 (Equation 1).
delta T without multirow heating coil selections. Contrast this to the COPh of one representative ASHP
A condenser water TES tank by contrast can readily be product, which varies from 2.1 at design ambient condi-
sized for 40°F (22°C) delta T or more. While the tank is tions (32°F [0°C]) to 3.1 under more mild ambient con-
intended to operate with a 20°F (11°C) delta T between ditions (60°F [16°C]) when supplying 120°F (49°C) water.
60°F (16°C) and 80°F (27°C) on most days to minimize Perhaps most important, any energy extracted from the
the lift overlap between cooling-only machines and building and stored in the TES tank for later or concur-
heat recovery machines to maximize cascade efficiency, rent heating use effectively provides “free” cooling—it is
on design heating days, the tank can cycle through one simply a by-product of the heating process.†
†The typical paradigm is to view the recovered heat from heat recovery chillers as a “free” by-product of the cooling process. With TIER
designs we prefer to flip the paradigm since the objective is to recover as much energy from the building on cold days as possible to
minimize the use of trim heat sources. This recovered heat makes the associated cooling in turn “free.”

22 ASHRAE JOURNAL ashrae.org O CTO B E R 2021

TECHNICAL FEATURE

Note that on a design day, when the ASHPs TABLE 1 Condenser water and hot water TIER design lift heating efficiency comparison.
are charging the TIER tank with tepid 80°F
CONDENSER WATER HEAT RECOVERY HOT WATER HEAT RECOVERY
(27°C) water, their COPh will increase to
approximately 3.75, yielding a cascaded COPh DEVICE SOURCE (°F) SINK (°F) COPh SOURCE (°F) SINK (°F) COPh

of 2.4. In other words, even on a design day Cooling Only Chiller 40 80 12.72 – – –
when both the ASHPs and heat recovery chill- Heat Recovery Chiller 60 140 4.2 40 140 3.5
ers are operating, the TIER design will still
NET HEATING EFFICIENCY 3.36 3.5
yield superior energy efficiency to a conven-
tional ASHP plant.
TIER also improves water efficiency in designs with variable speed centrifugal machines, showing that large
water-cooled chillers since any heat recovered from the heat recovery chillers are not necessarily more expen-
building for later or concurrent heating use is avoided sive than their cooling-optimized counterparts.
cooling tower heat rejection and evaporation. Condenser water TIER saves space, improves energy
and water efficiency and reduces costs relative to a con-
Cost ventional ASHP plant, making it an all-around win for
Not only are condenser water TIER designs signifi- owners and the environment.
cantly more efficient than ASHP designs, but they also
cost less. Since water-cooled chillers (typically 250 ton Alternative Storage Approaches
to 400 ton [879 kW to 1407 kW] screw chillers or larger While the author believes that condenser water (CW)
centrifugal machines) are used as the primary heat- TES is the most promising TIER approach for most appli-
ing machines in a CW TIER plant, they can efficiently cations, hot water (HW), chilled water (CHW), ice and
serve double-duty as cooling machines for the plant. For phase-change materials (PCM) all have their own ben-
instance, in the example plant discussed previously with efits and shortcomings.
two cooling-only chillers and two heat recovery chillers,
on a hot day one of the heat recovery chillers swings to Hot Water Storage
cooling duty and operates in parallel with the cooling Hot water (HW) storage is perhaps the most intuitive
chillers as shown in Figure 6. alternative for a system used to solve a heating problem.
On a design cooling day, both heat recovery chillers can The energy flows were conceptually shown in Figure 2.
swing to cooling duty. Owners, therefore, avoid paying A supposed advantage of HW storage relative to con-
for nearly as much redundant tonnage as they do when denser water (CW) storage is that it eliminates the
using a separate ASHP plant for heating. In effect, a cascade chiller configuration and allows for greater
TIER design swaps out multiple ASHPs for a TES storage morning peak shifting in locales with higher utility rates
tank and converts cooling-only chiller capacity—which in the morning warm-up hours where that matters.
already needed to exist for cooling duty—to heat recovery Eliminating the cascade configuration would seem to
chiller capacity. yield a significant energy benefit, but in practice the dif-
Preliminary pricing from the 1.1 million ft 2 ference is relatively small as Table 1 illustrates.
(102 000 m2) project discussed previously indicated the Consider an application requiring 40°F (4.4°C)
conversion to TIER would yield mechanical equipment chilled water and 140°F (60°C) hot water. COPh for one
savings on the order of $900,000. These savings do not manufacturer’s 300 ton (1055 kW) heat recovery screw
account for the electrical, controls, piping or opportu- chillers for such an application is approximately 3.5. In
nity cost savings from reclaimed space that will result a condenser water storage design for the same applica-
as well. The TIER redesign replaces eight ASHPs, with tion, a variable speed cooling-only centrifugal chiller
a budget price of $1,840,000, with one TES tank with a would operate at 40°F (4.4°C) chilled water supply
budget price of $960,000. And as noted above, the tank temperature (CHWST) and 80°F (27°C) condenser water
is basically free if it can double as the fire water stor- return temperature (CWRT), and a heat recovery screw
age tank. Chiller cost per ton is lower for the screw heat chiller would operate at 60°F (16°C) CWST and 140°F
recovery machines in this plant than the cooling-only (60°C) hot water supply temperature (HWST). At the

24 ASHRAE JOURNAL ashrae.org O CTO B E R 2021

 TECHNICAL FEATURE

noted conditions, the efficiency of a centrifugal chiller FIGURE 10 Direction of heat transfer for a chilled water TIER system.
might be ~0.30 kW/ton (~0.09 kW/kW) or 12.7 COPh; the
COPh of a heat recovery machine might be 4.2. The net
Water-Cooled Heat
process heating COP, therefore, works out to 3.36 with
Recovery Screw Cooling
condenser water storage. The condenser water storage Chiller
Tower
approach also requires slightly more pumping energy, High Efficiency
Two-Pipe CHW
but the overall efficiency delta is minor. Air-Source Water TES Centrifugal
Hot water (HW) storage allows nearly full heating peak Heat
Pump
load shifting because most of the heating peak period
loads are met using energy stored in the tank, plus a CHW HW CW
small amount of trim ASHP capacity. In contrast, a CW
storage design only shifts the portion of the energy
required to charge the TES outside of the heating peak should make up for the small full-load efficiency penalty
period. Heating peak load shifting is only of benefit in discussed previously.
areas with higher utility rates during the morning peak Last, hot water storage tanks are subject to significantly
heating period. greater jacket losses than CW storage tanks, which spend
HW TES also eliminates the potential for low heating many more hours close to neutral relative to ambient in
load heat recovery chiller cycling, which can be an issue all climates.
with CW TES designs if a HW buffer tank is not provided.
The benefits of HW storage are offset by several draw- Chilled Water Storage
backs that must be given close consideration. First, Another interesting TIER alternative is chilled water
ASHPs must be able to generate hot water at the same (CHW) storage, for which the energy flows are illustrated
temperature as the heat recovery chillers feeding the in Figure 10.
TES tank. This can be problematic since many ASHPs are The most compelling reason to consider chilled water
limited to a maximum HWST of approximately 120°F TIER is that it integrates exceptionally well with conven-
(49°C). The ASHPs therefore dictate the maximum tional peak shifting schemes. It therefore represents a
design hot water supply temperature, lowering the hot viable all-electric retrofit strategy for existing campus
water delta T achievable by the plant. Lower hot water and district chilled water TES plants. CHW TES also
delta Ts require larger tanks, bigger HW pipes and larger eliminates low-load cooling chiller cycling concerns; CW
pumps. Each of these factors contributes to higher first TES requires a buffer tank to avoid this issue in systems
costs. This issue does not exist with CW storage because with insufficient base load.
the ASHPs reject heat at tepid conditions to a CW storage A downside of chilled water TIER is that the stor-
tank. age tank needs to be approximately twice as large as a
Because ASHPs must generate design HW temperature condenser water tank because the design range is on
in the middle of winter, the HW TES design may not be the order of 20°F to 25°F (11°C to 14°C) instead of 40°F
viable in very cold climates since many ASHPs cannot (22°C). This is not an issue if the tank is also designed for
produce 120°F (49°C) water at extreme ambient condi- cooling peak shifting since that requirement will drive
tions as noted previously. The cascade introduced by CW the tank size in many applications; but, it is an issue in
storage eliminates this issue. non-campus designs where peak shifting is not a pri-
Hot water storage does not allow for demand-based mary driver.
hot water temperature resets. Instead, the hot water Chilled water TIER also prohibits chilled water supply
supply temperature needs to be fixed at the tank charge temperature reset when charging the tank since operat-
temperature throughout the day to maintain proper ing at design chilled water range is required to maxi-
stratification and ensure the worst-case temperature mize tank storage, maintain stratification and ensure
is always available as demand varies. In a CW storage the water stored in the tank is cold enough to serve
solution, HWST can be reset based on demand, which loads irrespective of varying temperature requirements
later in the day. This is in contrast to condenser storage,

O CTO B E R 2021 ashrae.org ASHRAE JOURNAL 25

TECHNICAL FEATURE

which allows for demand-based chilled water supply adds a maintenance complication; it requires that
setpoint reset. “chilled fluid” supply temperatures be below freezing
Finally, chilled water TES creates a less efficient cas- whenever the storage is being charged, thus creating
cade than condenser water TES any time trim heat is high lift conditions for cooling year-round; and it cre-
required. This is because the ASHPs end up doing a ates an even less efficient cascade than the chilled water
small fraction of the total required lift (the difference design with more lift overlap.
between the saturated suction temperature required
to extract heat from ambient air up to the saturated Phase-Change Materials
condensing temperature required to reject heat to the Phase-change materials (PCMs) are like ice in that they
heating hot water loop) or create excess “lift overlap.” store energy in the latent heat of fusion. Conceptually,
For instance, instead of an air-source heat pump absorb- they could replace HW storage, CW storage or CHW
ing heat at 32°F (0°C) and rejecting it as 80°F (27°C) storage in any of the schematics in Figure 2, Figure 3 or
condenser water, followed by a heat recovery chiller Figure 10. The main benefit of PCMs is that, like ice, they
supplying 60°F (16°C) water from its evaporator barrel dramatically reduce the TES footprint. The key downside
and rejecting heat as 140°F (60°C) hot water, an air- of PCM solutions is that they are typically significantly
source heat pump ends up absorbing heat at 32°F (0°C) more expensive than any of the other TES options and
and rejecting it as 60°F (16°C) chilled water, followed by therefore may not be life-cycle cost-effective.
a heat recovery chiller supplying 40°F (4.4°C) chilled
water and rejecting heat as 140°F (60°C) hot water. Conclusions
The latter cascade will be less efficient with most Further research is required to investigate the appli-
equipment and is also problematic for some ASHPs on cations and climates for which each of the above stor-
the market. One market leader’s product, for instance, age options is the most life-cycle cost effective. In the
cannot supply water colder than 77°F (25°C). This in meantime, the author encourages designers to begin
turn creates 37°F (21°C) of “lift overlap” (77°F [25°C] on exploring TIER, especially the novel concept of con-
the condenser leaving side of one machine, 40°F [4.4°C] denser water TIER, as an option on their all-electric jobs.
on the evaporator leaving side of the next) where only It is likely that, regardless of the approach taken, TIER
20°F (11°C) of overlap needs to exist. will unlock the potential of all-electric solutions for big
buildings by improving energy efficiency while reducing
Ice Storage costs and spatial requirements relative to typical ASHP
Ice storage has many of the same pros and cons as designs.
CHW storage and conceptually ties into a plant in the
same way, so CHW storage serves as a useful point of ref- References
erence. Ice tanks could replace the CHW tank in Figure 10 1. Jadun, P, C. McMillan, D. Steinberg, M. Muratori, et al. 2017.
"Electrification Futures Study: End-Use Electric Technology Cost
since the energy flows are otherwise identical. The pri- and Performance Projections through 2050." NREL/TP-6A20-70485.
mary benefit of ice storage relative to CHW storage is National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
energy density and therefore space. Because ice storage 2. ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2019, Energy Standard for Buildings Except
captures energy in the latent heat of fusion, only roughly Low-Rise Residential Buildings.
3. CEC. 2019. "2019 Building Energy Efficiency Standards
12% and 24% as much volume is required to store energy for Residential and Nonresidential Buildings, Title 24, Part 6."
in ice as in chilled water (20°F [11°C] delta T) and con- California Energy Commission.
denser water (40°F [22°C] delta T), respectively. Total 4. Raftery, P., A. Geronazzo, H. Cheng, G. Paliaga. 2018.
"Quantifying energy losses in hot water reheat systems." Energy and
floor area savings are, however, not as dramatic as these
Buildings 179:183 – 199. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2018.09.020
figures would suggest because ice TES systems are typi- 5. Mai, T., et al. 2018. "Electrification Futures Study: Scenarios
cally broken up into many smaller vessels instead of one of Electric Technology Adoption and Power Consumption for the
monolithic tank. United States." NREL/TP-6A20-71500. National Renewable Energy
Laboratory.
The primary downsides of ice storage are that it 6. MacCracken, M. 2020. "Electrification, heat pumps and
requires adding glycol to the cooling loop to prevent thermal energy storage: using yesterday’s waste energy for
freezing, which reduces heat exchange efficiency and tomorrow’s heating." ASHRAE Journal 62(7):32 – 39.

26 ASHRAE JOURNAL ashrae.org O CTO B E R 2021