Students from the University of Minnesota recently won a competition in Colorado with a highly efficient domestic heating and cooling system that is very cheap to run.
Photo: University of Minnesota engineering students with Shawn Intagliata of Unico
The students designed the highly efficient system to heat and cooling a three bedroom, two-bathroom home. The design would cost a homeowner only $282 (~£180) a year to run for its heating and only $38 (~£24) a year for its annual cooling energy costs. The students demonstrated in their modelling that the energy costs could be zero by offsetting it using solar technology.
“We are impressed with the University team members who were involved in this year’s competition, and we were honored to work with them on their Zero Energy Ready Home,” said Shawn Intagliata, Unico’s Director of Sustainable Business Development.
“The biggest energy expenditure in a home tends to be for heating and air conditioning, so specifying a high-efficiency system is important in designing a home with the lowest possible energy usage and costs.”
The student team based their design on the Unico heating and cooling system, and had the help of the company’s engineers. The Unico system uses high-velocity forced air through two-inch (~5cms), flexible, insulated ducting to distribute the air. This means there is no leakage into spaces in the building that do not need to be temperature-controlled, such as lofts.
By removing nearly a third more humidity form the air than regular air handling units, the Unico system allows home-owners to set the thermostat higher in the summertime while have a cool, comfortable temperature as if it were set lower.
The system also creates efficiency and energy savings by not shutting down the outside compressor (which is a new model) completely. As a result, it saves energy by avoiding having to ramp up to reach full power. Traditional units use a lot of power because of this aspect of their design. Additionally, the Unico units have a high Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio (SEER), which means their efficiency saves on energy costs.
The US Department of Energy (DOE) runs the competition, the ‘2015 Race to Zero Student Design Competition’. The team from the University of Minnesota picked up the award the prize at National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado.
