heat pump

New research from Germany shows that most of the heat pumps deployed in existing multifamily buildings may have to operate close to their water temperature operating limit (WTOL), thus being unable to provide elevated temperatures above 60 C. The researchers warned, however, that proper installation proceedings and new types of heat pumps may help solve this issue.

Lochinvar has developed a heat pump with a hot water supply of up to 70 C, with a coefficient of performance (COP) of 5.5. The system is entirely cascadable, offering outputs ranging from 88 kW to 880 kW. It also includes 455 liters of hot water storage capacity and uses propane (R290) as a refrigerant.

Austria’s Ökofen has developed a residential heat pump that identifies cost-effective and eco-friendly electricity in real time, in order to optimize heat production. It is now seeking a patent for its proprietary control technology.

Germany’s 3U Holding AG said its ThermCube heat pump is an ideal solution for new and existing detached and semi-detached houses with a total heat demand of between 6 kW and 11 kW. The new product has reportedly a heat output of 2.33 kW to 8.20 kW and a flow temperature of up to 70 C.

Researchers in Finland say that decentralized heat pumps could provide significant cost savings when selling surplus heat into district networks. However, they warned that capital expenditure remains high.

New research shows that hybrid heat pumps combining an electric heat pump and a gas boiler represent a technically feasible and economically viable solution to partially decarbonize heat supply in older dwellings. Gas and electricity prices, however, are crucial factors in real scenarios.

Bosch is currently selling the new heat pumps in the DACH markets and is planning to expand sales in other European markets in September. The new products use propane as the refrigerant and integrated sound diffusers. The manufacturer is also offering a power meter/sensor enabling the heat pumps to work with any existing PV system and battery storage solution at home.

Developed by scientists in the Netherlands, the heat battery prototype consists of a storage module based on potassium carbonate and an electricity-driven mechanical system that maintains continuous charging or discharging powers. Through a series of simulations, the research group found that the device can significantly reduce a dwelling’s electricity consumption for heating.

Octopus Energy has agreed to invest $89 million to scale up Kensa Group, a ground-source heat pump business, while KfW IPEX-Bank has agreed to provide $129.6 million of financing to German heat pump manufacturer Valliant.

Researchers in Korea have designed applied machine learning techniques to enable users to have more control of the timing of heating and cooling in air-source heat pumps. The system is based on backpropagation, which is an algorithm designed to test for errors working back from output nodes to input nodes.