Heat Pump Heating Seasonal Performance Factor (HSPF)
Hi,
does a heat pump operating Washington DC on average perform any worse than its official HSPF rating indicates ( if properly installed, sized, charged etc). The issue is that in cold climate the nominal HSPF rating will obviously not be achieved and it will over-achieved in hot climates . My understanding is that the nominal rating is for climate zone 4, which DC is in. If you have reference to papers studying the issue, that would be great. Thanks!
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Replies
Hi Matt,
I’m giving your question a bump in hopes an HVAC expert or someone with related experience will share some thoughts.
Lots of info below. Being in Z4 and HSPF using a Z4 reference, I suspect that you won't have data necessary to make a much better estimate than the HSPF rating.
https://www.aceee.org/files/proceedings/2004/data/papers/SS04_Panel1_Paper08.pdf
Thanks Jon. My understanding is that the HSPF rating is designed for Climate Region 4, which is what DC is in. And yet our local natural gas utility runs a cost comparisons between heating with natural gas and heating with a heat pump that de-rates the stated HSPF of the heat pump in order to ostensibly account for "local climate".