AHSRAE SoCal April Meeting: Mastering Modular Air-to-Water Heat Pump

Join us at the Stantec DTLA office for the ASHRAE Southern California Chapter April meeting!

Featuring the legendary Kent Peterson, PE - Co-founder, VP, and Chief Technical Officer at P2S. He is also an ASHRAE Presidential Member and a recipient of the ASHRAE F. Paul Anderson Award and the Louise & Bill Holladay Distinguished Fellow Award.

Modular air-to-water heat pumps are emerging as a cornerstone of building decarbonization. With market growth approaching 11% annually and efficiencies reaching up to three times that of traditional boiler systems, these systems are reshaping commercial HVAC design. Yet many installations continue to struggle with short-cycling, compressor failures, temperature instability, and heat loss during defrost cycles.

In most cases, the equipment is not the root cause. The issue lies in system design.

In this session, Kent Peterson draws on extensive field experience and applied research to address the design fundamentals that determine whether modular heat pump systems succeed or fail. Attendees will examine real-world failure modes and the underlying design decisions that drive them.

In this session, Kent Peterson will draw on years of real-world project experience and research to cover:

• Field Failures and Root Causes — What’s actually going wrong in installed systems and why common failure modes trace back to a handful of overlooked design decisions.
• Load Profiles and Turndown — How 8760-hour load data reveals that most buildings spend the vast majority of operating hours at a fraction of peak load, and why a minimum 20:1 turndown ratio is essential.
• Storage Volume Sizing — A simplified, rigorous method to replace the confusing range of published rules of thumb, including when and why buffer tanks and stratified thermal energy storage require different approaches.
• Defrost Management — How defrost events affect system capacity and building comfort, and how to size storage to maintain supply temperature through the worst-case defrost scenario.
• Storage Tank Alternatives — Comparing two-port buffer tanks, four-port buffer tanks, and stratified thermal energy storage decouplers — and how each choice changes the sizing calculation.

This session is designed for consulting engineers, manufacturer representatives, contractors, and commissioning professionals seeking practical, field-tested strategies to ensure reliable, high-performance air-to-water heat pump systems.

TICKETS FOR THIS EVENT ARE LIMITED TO 60 MAX, EARLY REGISTRATION IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED DUE TO THE LIMITED SPACE OF THE VENUE.

Parking after 4 PM at the building is $10. Public transit or carpooling is strongly recommended.

Once you enter the builing: Elevator will take you up to Lobby on ground level and you can let the front desk know they’re visiting Stantec on the 3rd floor – they will let the people up to the office.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

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Host or Publisher ASHRAE Southern California Chapter