The Energy Department's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and five building equipment entities will collaborate on projects to improve the energy performance of heating, air conditioning and ventilation systems and investigate climate-friendly alternative refrigerants.

Scientists at the Building Technologies Research and Integration Center at ORNL will conduct research and development with the National Automatic Merchandising Association, Taylor Commercial Foodservice, Emerson Climate Technologies, Enginuity Power Systems and Baltimore Aircoil Co.

The Energy Department said that the 127 million buildings in the United States consume nearly 40% of the nation’s total energy at a cost of $415 billion annually, accounting for 36% of carbon emissions. The department has a goal to reduce the average energy use in all U.S. buildings by 30% by 2030.

The research work will focus on the following:

National Automatic Merchandising Association: Evaluating environmentally friendly refrigerants for vending machines in North America, mitigating leak risks and assessing potential hazards including flammability.

Taylor Commercial Foodservice: Developing climate-friendly refrigerants for food processing and dispensing machines in quick service restaurants and food retail. More than three million refrigerated food/beverage processing, dispensing and vending machines in the U.S. consume up to 70% of energy through the compressor. The work will focus on developing refrigerant solutions that meet domestic and international expectations.

Emerson Climate Technologies: Accelerating the development of next-generation architecture for advanced heating, ventilation, air conditioning and dehumidification coupled with energy storage and integrated water heating through a vapor compression system that uses long-term, climate-friendly refrigerants.

Enginuity Power Systems: Developing a prototype of a commercially ready micro combined heat and power device with an internal combustion engine fueled by natural gas. The company said that with ORNL's help, it will be able to launch the next generation of its device for large-scale commercialization.

Baltimore Aircoil Co.: Advancing next-generation heat exchanger technology that can be deployed in an evaporator cooling system, reducing the size of the system and decreasing energy and water usage by 30%.

Collaborations are expected to conclude within two or three years of each project’s implementation.

Funding is supported by the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Building Technologies Office.