DALLAS—The Copeland Corp./Emerson Climate Technologies Copeland Digital Scroll™ is the first AHR Expo Innovation Awards Product of the Year.

The winning product was announced Tuesday during special ceremonies at AHR Expo. It was selected by a panel of ASHRAE members from the eight products that had won first place in their respective categories. The Digital Scroll qualified for consideration by winning first place in the cooling category.

Bart Powelson, director – commercial A/C market, air conditioning division for Emerson, said the Digital Scroll was introduced two years ago, and has grown for use in North America commercial buildings. Available in nine sizes ranging from 3 to 10 tons (10.6 to 35 kW), the compressor can modulate its capacity from 10% to 100% with no discrete steps. As loads decrease, its digital controller reduces power consumption, so at 50% load, it would use only about 60% of the power needed to run at peak load. In comparison, a traditional hot gas bypass system would need the same amount of watts to run at 100% or 50% load.

More than 125 products were entered in the 2007 competition which is sponsored by ASHRAE, the Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute (ARI), and International Exposition Company (IEC).

As part of Tuesday’s ceremonies, IEC President Clay Stevens presented a check of $9,375 that represented the sum of the entry fees. The money will be used for scholarships for students pursuing careers in the HVAC&R industry.