No abstract

No abstract

Because more than 70% of the nation's current total use of electricity, 3,856 billion kWh, is consumed by 117 million households and 5.5 million commercial buildings, 1 integrating them with the grid is critical to reducing peak loads and keeping associated infrastructure costs down. Moreover, most of the load growth projected by the US Department of Energy and the US Energy Information Administration through 2040 is driven by buildings, which in turn will drive projected capacity expansions. 2 Many smart grid applications are designed to minimize peak demand 3 -primary among them is demand response-but as costs decrease, distributed generation and storage (both electric and thermal) may also make important contributions. Concurrently, housing is in high demand after years of underinvestment in new housing starts. 4

Due to the growing global concerns around the use of refrigerants with relatively high global warming potential, new refrigerants with the positive attributes of both high thermal performance and low environmental impact are currently in development by Honeywell. These new refrigerants exhibit promising performance when compared with refrigerants currently used in stationary AC systems such as those that use R-410A, R-407C, and R-134a, for example. These new refrigerants also show significantly lower flammability characteristics than the much more flammable hydrocarbons. Replacements of common HFC refrigerants such as R-410A and R-407C are discussed for residential air conditioning applications. Thermal properties as well as experimental results in representative air conditioning systems are presented, showing the benefits of using these new refrigerants.

No abstract