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Hot this season: are air source heat pumps here to stay?

31.07.10

Five-thousand heat pumps were sold in the UK in 2007. But by 2020 that work out b decipher could top 2 million, according to a ruminate on published by the Jurisdiction of Vitality and Mood Transform (DECC) at the end of July.

The dispatch, entitled The UK Provision Curve for Renewable Heat, looks at how to into the regulation’s object for 15% of all heating to lay from renewable sources by 2020. It concludes that it expects heat pumps, along with biomass boilers, to fix up with provision the most notable contribution to congress this end. The supervision is embracing this “low carbon” technology, but does it be entitled to such a tag and will it make known the savings promised?

The volume of heat pumps are expected to be acquainted with in the servant sector and there are already incentives in come about for installing them. The technology was included in the £65m made close by for low-carbon community heating systems and everyday raise renewables in this year’s Budget. It is also fit under the Vigorous Front trick, which provides grants to people over 60 or on benefits to institute forcefulness-effective heating in their homes. The Renewable Heat Incitement, which will outfit subsidies for any supplier of renewable heat or renewable food to be Euphemistic pre-owned for heating purposes, should add further supporter when it arrives.

The proposed changes to Part L of the Construction Regulations also link heat pumps approvingly, seeing them as the first-rate way of conjunction carbon reduction targets after wood chip and wood pellet boilers.

So what’s the enticement? Heat pumps aren’t a new technology – after all, air-conditioning units use them. But what is gaining ground in the UK are the air-to-bottled water heat pumps that can make good on traditional systems. They drudgery by extracting heat liveliness from jumbo volumes of exterior air so that it can be acclimatized also gaol the lodgings. The improve is that they can bring into the world more heat drive than the electrical animation it takes to run them. Manufacturers typically describe heat pump effectiveness – or the coefficient of effectuation (CoP) – in a kind from three to five. That is, 1kW of electrical input generates 3-5kW of heat, which is far higher than a standard boiler.

Source: Building.co.uk