PNNL

Abstract

The California Public Utility Commission?s Board of Energy Efficiency identified the multi-family sector as underserved and encouraged California electric utilities to design and implement cost-effective efficiency programs. In response, Southern California Edison (SCE) asked Battelle ? Pacific Northwest Division (Battelle) to design and evaluate efficiency programs for Leisure World Laguna Woods (Leisure World), a private, gated, all electric, retirement community of 18,000 inhabitants with over 99% of the dwelling units being multifamily buildings. One area that Battelle recommended evaluating was coin-operated clothes washers. There are over 300 laundry rooms at Leisure World containing more than 1100 conventional clothes washers owned by the community. The goal of the program was to verify, through in situ demonstration, the performance of selective high-performance, family-size, coin-operated clothes washers. To meet the program goals, Battelle designed and implemented a research agenda that included baseline metering of 12 conventional washers (4 in each of 3 laundry rooms), replacement of the conventional washers, and metering of 12 high-performance washers (4 from each of 3 manufacturers in the 3 laundry rooms). Each washer was end-use metered for hot water, cold water, electricity, and frequency of use. In addition, an analysis was performed of the potential for downsizing standard electric water heaters in these rooms due to reduced hot water demand. The results of the field verification were positive. If LWLW converted all 1100 conventional coin-operated clothes washers, the annual savings would be 1 GWh of electricity, 20 million gallons of water, and over $150,000 in reduced electric and water bills. The annual savings would be greater when coupled with a program to downsize and optimize the water heaters. There would, also, potentially be clothes dryer energy savings due to lower remaining moisture content of the clothes.