Nearly all cooling systems, and an increasing proportion of heating systems, utilize the vapor compression cycle (VCC) to provide and remove heat from conditioned spaces. Even though the application of VCC’s throughout the built environment is ubiquitous, effective and accessible models of the performance of these systems remains elusive. Such models could be important tools for equipment and building designers, and building energy managers and those who are attempting to optimize building energy performance through the use of model-based control systems. A quasi-steady state, spreadsheet-based model has been developed which requires knowledge of 10 system-specific parameters. A method utilizing manufacturer’s test conditions to derive these values is presented.

The model is applied to three commercially available units and a subset of test conditions is used to identify the model parameters. The model is validated over the entire range of conditions with modeling errors ranging from 2 to 4%.