Copeland Vice President and General Manager of Refrigeration David Bersaglini, left, describes technology inside a Copeland lab to U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm on Monday, Aug. 7.
Luke Gronneberg | Sidney Daily News
By Charlotte Caldwell
[email protected]
SIDNEY — United States Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm visited Copeland, formerly Emerson Climate Technologies, Monday afternoon to learn about the latest advancements in heat pump technology and other next-generation residential and commercial products. While there, Granholm announced an additional $2 million in U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) funding will go to Copeland.
“I’m thrilled to announce that DOE is awarding another $46 million to projects in 15 communities across the country developing more of these advanced building technologies so we can get the sector performing at the top of its game, and that includes more than $2 million to Copeland,” Granholm said. “A lot of the technologies we’re funding in this are specifically geared toward affordable housing.”
“As a company, Copeland is focused on advancing sustainability in the areas of climate control, refrigeration and industrial compression,” Copeland CEO Ross Shuster said. “Over the years, Copeland has established lasting partnerships across our industry and developed strong relationships with governmental bodies such as the Department of Energy. We see this cooperation across both the public and the private sectors as vital to advancing sustainability and in general and more specifically advancing sustainable climate technologies.
The grant from the Department of Energy to support heat pump research… that grant specifically will fund important research on making breakthrough advancements in the heat pump area, and that investment and research will happen right here in Sidney. What we plan to accomplish with that research is to reduce installation costs by as much as 40%, making it more affordable for heat pumps for all Americans, reducing peak loads by up to 50%, taking demand off the grid at those critical hours, and very importantly, lowering electricity use by 25% versus standard heat pumps today.”
Granholm touched on the importance of companies like Copeland making products in America and therefore keeping jobs in America.
“We’ve seen communities roll up when big factories move to somewhere else, and we’ve seen other countries really take an aggressive strategy on trying to recruit them. This example here of you bringing manufacturing back from places is exactly what we want to see all over the country. We want these products made in America, with American workers, stamped ‘Made in America,’ used in America, and then exported all around the world,” Granholm said.
Granholm and Shuster agreed the biggest challenge for heat pump technology is informing the public on the benefits of heat pumps, like reduced energy bills, reduced fossil fuel use and rebates, like how people above low income can get a 30% tax credit for purchasing a heat pump.
“Right now, people are buying more heat pumps than they are regular HVAC systems, so I think as the information about the consumer rebates and tax credits get out and as more people experience heat pumps… I think you’re going to see a hockey stick trajectory of heat pump acquisition,” Granholm said.
This was the third and final stop of the day Granholm made in Ohio. She first toured a Cirba facility and participated in a groundbreaking ceremony in Lancaster, then had a weatherization conversation with a local homeowner in Pickerington. This was part of an effort “to highlight the success of the Biden-Harris Administration’s whole-of-government effort to secure America’s clean energy future and bolster America’s energy security — all while lowering costs for American families and creating good-paying jobs throughout the nation,” according to a DOE press release.
