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Better Unitary Equipment Air-Handlers for Efficiency and Humidity Control
Abstract
Regulatory requirements drive unitary equipment
design. For residential equipment, SEER reflects
performance at moderate temperatures, and is largely
independent of high temperature efficiency and high
latent heat removal capability. The test procedure
gives too little credit for advanced air handlers that
reduce air conditioning load and facilitate adaptive
humidity control through automatic fan speed
adjustment. DC permanent magnet variable speed
motors have much lower market share than less
efficient permanent split capacitor designs: changing
saves 15% - 25% at high fan speed, and at least 50%
at lower speeds (high latent cooling). Humidistats
allow dynamic humidity control by reducing air flow,
cooling the evaporator. Following market
transformation to increase market share, federal
equipment stanards should be augmented to include
specific air handler air flow efficiency levels, such as
0.2 watts/cfm at size-dependent static pressures. We
estimate that customer payback will be less than three
years in a mature market.
Citation
Sachs, H. M. (2002). Better Unitary Equipment Air-Handlers for Efficiency and Humidity Control. Energy Systems Laboratory (http://esl.tamu.edu); Texas A&M University (http://www.tamu.edu). Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /4633.