The Building Energy Efficiency Laboratory at the University of Oklahoma and heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning laboratory at the University of Miami, along with industrial partners Trade Mechanical Contractors Inc. and Honeywell, team up for this demonstration of an integrated water source heat pump water heater (HPWH) system to meet simultaneous heating and cooling demands and enhance the reliability of cooling and heating systems, at military installations. The goal is to provide and validate an innovative electrification solution to meet the carbon reduction mission of military installations. The technical objectives of the demonstration at Tinker Air Force Base (AFB) are to:

1. Evaluate the initial design, installation costs and model-predictive-control (MPC)-based optimal operation sequence of the integrated water-source HPWH system in a real-world Department of Defense (DoD) installation.
2. Validate the performance, i.e., the energy savings, natural gas use reduction, and maintenance cost of the integrated water-source HPWH system using real-world DoD operating conditions.
3. Enable direct technology transfer and commercialization by Honeywell, making the technology available to Tinker AFB and across DoD.

The integrated water-source HPWH technology package requires adding a water source HPWH to connect the secondary chilled water loop and the secondary hot water loop, along with two HPWH pumps, one on the heat absorption/cooling (evaporator) side to connect with the chilled water loop and the other on the heat production/heating (condenser) side to connect with the hot water loop. Additionally, to obtain the optimal energy efficiency and attractive return on investment, the technology package includes a MPC-based operation sequence and coordinated pump operation sequence. The MPC-based operation sequence uses a learning-based load forecast modeling approach to optimize the enable and disable sequence of the integrated water-source HPWH system for obtaining the maximum utilization factor while the coordinated pump operation sequence adopts the patented virtual pump flow meter technology for reliable and efficient integrated system operation.

The demonstrated technology provides an effective electrification approach for military installations that have simultaneous cooling and heating loads due to its financial efficiency. The technology allows the utilization of both heating and cooling generated by the HPWH, which roughly doubles the efficiency of traditional HPWH applications. In addition, the technology package can enhance system reliability by avoiding using chillers or cooling towers in extremely cold weather conditions for installations with cooling load year-round. In addition to reliability enhancement, an annual $69,000 natural gas savings can be obtained for the demonstration building, which is equivalent to a 500-ton carbon reduction at Tinker AFB. A simple payback is 6.5 years based on the estimated installation cost.