Session: 02-07: Sustainable Buildings, Communities, and Cities

Paper Number: 142387

142387 - Road Map to Net Zero for Hvacr Products 

Abstract: 

The urgency of addressing climate change is clear and the HVACR (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration) industry has a critical role to play in the decarbonization story in the US – while also continuing to provide critical solutions and services such as ensuring healthy and safe indoor environments and protecting perishable food & medicine. HVACR is responsible for >25% of the world’s carbon footprint. Heating and cooling systems in buildings account for >15% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (buildings account for nearly 40% of all GHG, with their HVAC systems accounting for 40% of the building emissions) and food waste accounts for 10% of the world’s GHG emissions. As secular trends increase the demand for HVAC and refrigeration products and their impact on climate change, there’s a need for aggressive actions to minimize our environmental impact and address the most urgent challenge our planet has ever faced.

The carbon footprint of Carrier, a world leader in high-technology heating, air-conditioning, and refrigeration solutions for residential, commercial, retail, transport, and food service customers was inventoried. Like most companies within the HVACR industry, the use of sold products (Scope 3) is the key contributor to emissions, making up >95% of Carrier’s carbon footprint. Of Carrier’s Scope 3 emissions, ~45% comes from burning natural gas for heating, ~35% from electricity consumption, and ~15% from refrigerants entering the atmosphere. The remaining 5% comes from the embodied carbon within the products sold. Based on the carbon footprint assessment, we identified four decarbonization pillars to get to net zero:

1)    Electrification & Energy Efficiency: Delivering a portfolio of efficient products that minimize customer energy use, fossil-fuel consumption, and greenhouse emissions, supporting net-zero ambitions will lower emissions.

2) Digitally enabled & energy solutions (with a focus on carbon footprint reduction): Integrating energy management and digital solutions across our product portfolio to minimize carbon emissions while building grid resiliency.

3) Refrigerants: Using lower Global Warming Potential refrigerants, in addition to our natural refrigerant technologies, to reduce the GHG footprint of our products while in use.

4) Sustainable materials: Designing products with materials that have lower embodied carbon.

To be successful in deploying these addressing these net zero pillars, in all industries and segments where we have the largest energy-saving potential such as mobility, production, infrastructure, and climatization, our energy transformation needs to happen simultaneously and at scale with the following 3 steps: 1) Electrification, 2) Integration and 3) Resilience. This approach will help pave the way to reaching Net Zero emissions

Presenting Author: Ravi Annapragada CARRIER CORPORATION

Presenting Author Biography: Ravi Annapragada is the Sustainability Solutions Director at Carrier driving Carrier’s product sustainability. Ravi leads the sustainability initiatives at Carrier including identification and development of sustainable HVACR technologies. He has authored >40 peer-reviewed papers in the area of alternate heat pumps, solid-state cooling, and heat transfer and has filed >27 patents (`11 granted). Ravi is an ASME fellow and recipient of several technical accolades including the ASME Young Engineering of the Year and Boelter-McAdams Prize. He currently serves as the Vice Chair of the ASME Heat Transfer Division Executive Committee and the Industry Advisory Board member for the Mechanical Engineering Department at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University.

Authors:

Ravi Annapragada CARRIER CORPORATION
Valerie Lisi Carrier
Korinti Recalde Carrier