Next phase of Cold Climate Heat Pump Technology Challenge underway

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced that four additional heat pump manufacturers (Bosch, Daikin, Midea, and Johnson Controls) have successfully produced heat pump prototypes as part of the DOE’s Residential Cold Climate Heat Pump (CCHP) Technology Challenge, and their prototypes will join products from Lennox, Carrier, Trane, and Rheem in the next phase of the Challenge, which is to involve the installation and monitoring of more than 23 prototypes in various cold-climate locations throughout the U.S. and Canada over the next year.

First announced in May 2021, the Challenge — launched in partnership with Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — was enlisting manufacturers of residential, centrally ducted, electric-only heat pumps, and the Challenge had two segments: one for a CCHP optimized for 5F (-15C) operation (“the 5F challenge”) and the another for a CCHP optimized for -15F (-26C) operation (“the -15F challenge”).

In the Challenge Specifications, published in September 2021, manufacturers could choose to participate in either one or both segments of the Challenge.

The first six industry partners announced in Fall 2021 included: Carrier, Daikin, Johnson Controls, Lennox, Mitsubishi Electric and Trane. In February 2022 three more companies joined the Challenge: Midea, Rheem and LG. And subsequently Bosch also joined the Challenge.

In June 2022 it was announced that Lennox had developed the first prototype that achieved the Technology Challenge’s lab testing standards, delivering 100% heating at 5F (-15C) at double the efficiency, and 70% to 80% heating at -5F (-20C) and -10F (-23C).

Now there are eight companies (Bosch, Carrier, Daikin, Johnson Controls, Lennox, Midea, Rheem and Trane) participating in the next phase of the 5F challenge. It’s still to be determined if product commercialization can be achieved in 2024.

energy.gov