Panasonic recently unveiled an innovative new energy efficient approach to heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) that uses significantly less energy than conventional technologies. Building upon its rich history and founder’s guiding vision of making today better than yesterday, tomorrow better than today, the OASYS solution brings together two areas of focus: sustainable technology and the wellbeing of society.
Introducing OASYS
OASYSis a holistic home comfort solution created for modern, high-performance homes. As home building design has advanced with new materials and construction techniques, the standard approaches to conditioning and treating indoor air left room for innovation. Today, OASYS combines a suite of Panasonic technologies into a complete, proprietary solution to take a leap forward for one of the home’s most important systems.
Offering cleaner, fresher air; balanced humidity; and consistent temperature control across the house, this new approach to HVAC supports the comfort and wellbeing of families in their home environment with greater energy efficiency and cost saving advantages compared to traditional systems.
Superior performance and comfort
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Americans spend on average about 90% of their time indoors1 where the concentration of some pollutants is often two to five times higher than typical outdoor air.2 Improving ventilation with outdoor air is one of the fundamental strategies to lowering concentrations of indoor air pollutants – but most home heating and cooling systems do not mechanically bring fresh air into the house.3
OASYS starts with ventilation: the system takes in fresh outdoor air, filters it, and tempers it to the homeowner’s temperature setting. It then circulates air constantly throughout the entire house for approximately four air changes per hour4 while continuously monitoring the air for comfort. The result is a more comfortable, cleaner indoor environment for the family, designed with their wellness in mind. It goes beyond what homeowners can expect from conventional systems today with:
- Consistent Temperature Control: maintains consistent temperature and airflow from room-to-room in the home, eliminating hot spots and cold corners.
- Balanced Air Circulation and Filtration: provides constant, ongoing ventilation and filtration of home air to help protect from allergens and pollutants while deodorizing the air to reduce odors.
- Humidity Control: delivers ongoing humidity control throughout the whole house with constant air movement and ventilation to help prevent excess moisture and mold.
- Easy maintenance: requires minimal regular maintenance of a simple-to-clean air filter with no annual system maintenance necessary, and each component of the solution can be repaired or replaced individually.
- Quiet Operation: runs with whisper-quiet operation, with minimal fan noise to promote more comfort for families.
These features work together to improve the quality of the air inside the home, supporting the longevity of the home by helping protect against mold and excess humidity that can cause decay.
Improved efficiency and economics
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the HVAC system demands more energy on average than any other system in a home through its energy consumption in space heating and air conditioning.5 OASYS can reduce energy consumption for heating and air conditioning by up to 53 percent6 compared to traditional HVAC systems, making it an ideal solution for those looking to reduce their home’s energy usage and lower monthly energy bills.
The improved efficiency offered by OASYS makes it easier and more affordable to leverage renewable energy to power the home, such as residential solar and battery storage. Decreasing the energy needs of a home’s most demanding system means that smaller and more cost-efficient solar systems can be used to power the home, expanding solar power as an option for more houses. And when powered by solar panels and battery storage, homes are better able to withstand power outages, making them more resilient to weather disturbances caused by climate impacts.
OASYS delivers these performance and efficiency gains with a similar installation cost7 to existing technologies in high-performance homes. Achieving this dramatic reduction in HVAC power demand is a critical step towards achieving a more affordable and accessible zero-energy home.
Learn more about Panasonic’s OASYS.
[1] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 1989. Report to Congress on indoor air quality: Volume 2. EPA/400/1-89/001C. Washington, DC.
[2] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 1987. The total exposure assessment methodology (TEAM) study: Summary and analysis. EPA/600/6-87/002a. Washington, DC.
[3] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “The Inside Story: A Guide to Indoor Air Quality”
[4] Based on measured data from Panasonic in a concept home environment: total volume of the air-conditioned space was 33,600 cubic feet (ft3), and total airflow was 129,600 ft3 per hour.
[5] U.S. Energy Information Administration, Residential Energy Consumption Survey 2020. Summary can be found on “Uses of Energy explained” page.
[6] Based on a July 2024 analysis commissioned by Panasonic comparing the OASYS solution against conventional system designs, using a two-story, 4-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom house with light concrete tile roofing and a ventilated crawlspace underneath the first floor as the model home. Energy savings compare a Panasonic high efficiency design including an OASYS high efficiency custom HVAC system and high-performance envelope, to a code minimum house design utilizing a standard gas furnace. Energy demand was converted and standardized to kilowatt hours (kWh), with the model estimating 5,932 kWh annual energy consumption for the OASYS system compared to an estimated 12,744 kWh annual energy consumption for the conventional system, a reduction in annual energy consumption of 53%. The U.S. Department of Energy’s IES Virtual Environment software was used to produce an HVAC load sizing report, while the building’s energy usage was assessed with the National Renewable Energy Lab’s BEopt tool.
[7] Calculation based on installing the OASYS system at an initial cost of $25,000 in the abovementioned two-story, 4-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom high-performance house compared to a conventional HVAC system in high-performance homes at an initial cost of approximately $24,000
