Energy savings & outdoor reset controls

Mark Evans

I am looking for data that quantifies the operating cost savings resulting from the use of automatic outdoor reset controls (any brand or type).

Weezbo

it may be difficult to find.

there are alot of people who recognise the advantage to phyical and finacial comfort resulting from the correct use of outdoor reset yet due to the many variables in systems it might be impossible to say specifically what would be some exact numerical precentage ...i was looking on a site in new zeland the other day it was about thier new equivalent of heat loss calcs for various places and regions it has been around a while and it had some interesting view points on designe using temp hours vs say degree days...in certain regions...when temps are 11.5 ¡ãC or less.it is called ALF ias i recall.

Constantin

Do a search...

... we've gone through this before. Honeywell did some research and showed a 16-24% percent improvement w/outdoor reset alone. Tekmar also has published some literature. along those lines. Then there is all the stuff from the DoE that also advocates outdoor reset in all new construction/renovation.

Mike T., Swampeast MO

Objective studies are hard to find. One that comes to mind was done a few years ago by the Energy Resource Center in St. Paul, MN. All or a part of it used to be on the web, but it looks like you have to buy it now...

It did concentrate on multi-family (generally fairly large) structures. Found savings with reset of about 14%. When I saw it years ago, there was a gem of a statement regarding condensation, something along the lines of "We've been using full outdoor reset and WWWSD for decades and have never had a problem [with condensation]. Seems like some sort of 'new' problem."

One problem is that reset is frequently used a part of a more comprehensive study including weatherization, other control modifications, etc. It gets really hard to single out the affect of any individual change.

Here's some links:

http://hem.dis.anl.gov/eehem/95/950915.html

http://www.mncee.org/pub_alph.htm

http://weatherization.ornl.gov/pdf/ORNL_CON_303.pdf

Nearly all government literature will state that outdoor reset and warm-weather shutdown controls result in savings with high cost effectiveness. The general governmental recommendations for saving are:

1) Insulate/weatherize

2) Ensure equipment is operating to its potential

3) Add weather-responsive controls, e.g. outdoor reset and WWSD