LSB Industries Inc. (LXU)

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Geothermal Heat Pumps: The Next Generation
new more efficient geothermal heat pumps LSB Industries LXU Barry Golson Waterfurnace Trilogy 40 Q-mode Waterfurnace TSC:WFI OTC:WFIFF technical
Today 07:58 AM


~~News prior to and or released on 05-25-2012~~


http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomkonrad/2012/05/25/geothermal-heat-pumps-the-next-generation/?feed=rss_home

Geothermal Heat Pumps: The Next Generation


The most efficient way to heat and cool a building just got more efficient.

Climatemaster, a division of LSB Industries (NYSE:LXU), recently announced that their new Trilogy 40 geothermal heat pump (GHP) had been certified by the Air Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) to exceed 40 Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER) under ground loop conditions.

EER is the ratio of effective cooling (heat removed) to the energy used, at maximal load, and is the standard measure of cooling effectiveness for geothermal heat pumps. A quick perusal of the list of Energy Star qualified GHPs shows just how big a leap this is: the highest EER rating currently available is 30, and many Energy Star qualified heat pumps have EERs as low as 17. So the Trilogy 40 is a third again as efficient for cooling as the most efficient commercially available GHP, and more than twice as efficient as some Energy Star qualified GHPs.

Scott Lankhorst, President of Synergy Systems, a GHP installer in Kingston, NY, called the jump in efficiency “pretty amazing… 30 EER has been the max for quite a while now.” Lankhorst says that Climatemaster hopes to have the TrilogyTM40 in full production by the end of the year.

According to Barry Golsen, President and COO of LSB, the Trilogy 40 will also have improved heating performance, with a Coefficient of Performance (COP, the industry measure of heating efficiency) of 5 at ground loop conditions. This is also a significant increase, with the best GHPs in the Energy Star list having COPs of 4.1.

In addition, they’ve added new functionality, called “Q-Mode.” Q-Mode is the result of a collaboration between Climatemaster and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It allows the GHP to produce hot water even when it is not being used for space heating or cooling. According to Chris Williams, technology evangelist at Heatspring, a provider of renewable energy and energy efficiency training and certification, producing hot water year round required additional equipment (and cost) with traditional heat pumps.

The Competition

Yet Climatemaster is not moving into 40 EER territory unchallenged. On GHP manufacturer Waterfurnace Renewable Energy’s (TSX:WFI, OTC:WFIFF) first quarter conference call, an analyst asked CEO Tom Huntington if Waterfurnace had an answer to efficiency breakthroughs at “a competitor.” It does. Huntington believes Waterfurnace’s new 7-Series GHP’s will be even more efficient than Climatemaster’s Trilogy. Variable speed compressors (see below) are available from a number of vendors, and Huntington believes that the compressor used in the Trilogy is less efficient than the on Waterfurnace has selected for the 7-Series.

The Technology

How did they achieve these efficiency breakthroughs? Both companies speak of “variable speed technology.” According to Lankhorst, what they mean is variable speed compressors. Current GHP models use two stage scroll compressors. Variable speed blower motors and pump fields have been available for some time, although they often require the special controllers.

Variable speed compressors are new. According to Williams, “there has been a huge amount of innovation in air source heat pumps,” and the innovations are now being applied to ground source technology.

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