News & Updates

This report provides an analysis of energy and bill savings achievable through the use of dual fuel heat pump RTUs and energy recovery ventilators (ERVs) in Minnesota’s commercial buildings. 

In February 2023, Center for Energy and the Environment (CEE) contracted with Cadeo to conduct a baseline market characterization for commercial rooftop units (RTUs) to inform the development of a high-performance RTU initiative. 

The Market Transformation Plan is the culmination of the program development stage, where extensive research and planning is done to prepare the initiative for market launch. The purpose of this plan is to summarize key contextual information, lay out the basic program logic and desired end state that informs our market strategy, and present the fundamental market support activities necessary for success.  

As a market transformation program, ETA will work to overcome market barriers, leading to greater market adoption of targeted technologies, and ultimately, energy savings. In the initial years of a market transformation program, energy savings can be small as it can take time to grow the market. 

This study sought to determine market barriers to implementing retrofit technologies available for packaged rooftop units (RTUs) and determine ways to overcome them. 

Packaged roof-top units (RTUs) are ubiquitous on commercial buildings throughout the United States because of their low capital cost, reliability and well-developed service and distribution network. There is anecdotal evidence, however, that these systems tend to operate inefficiently and sub-optimally. To validate or refute this evidence, we conducted a multi-level field study to characterize the RTUs in Minnesota.

This project investigated the expectations and the operating performance of ERV units in Minnesota commercial and institutional buildings. The project team used available data to characterize commercial and institutional ERVs in Minnesota and then monitored the performance of representative ERV systems, identified and rectified problems that diminish ERV performance, and documented the energy use and costs associated with under-performing ERVs.