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How the air to water heat pump market is going to be big business in the UK and problems that may hamper it (2011)
Air
to water heat pumps for houses will be big business for plumbers and air
conditioning engineers within the next decade. Many air conditioning
engineers are now gaining the correct training to get the accreditation
for entering a manufacturers installers program. The main players within
the air to water heat pump market are Daikin with the Altherma
and Mitsubishi Electric's Ecodan. Both units require the
manufactures accreditation to install their equipment.
Lack
of blending of skills: The
issue with the air to water heat pump market in the UK is that plumbers
are installing equipment without a full understanding of heat pump
technology and air conditioning engineers do not have the plumbing or
heating engineer skills required to do a full heating system
installation. This lack of blending of skills give plumbers a better
chance of getting the installations as they have most of the skills
involved to do the main installation such as fitting radiators and
general plumbing services. The but is plumbers slip up with a lack
of basic knowledge of a refrigeration cycle. A good example of this will
be when a refrigeration component fails and a heating engineer will not
have the skills to change it.
Heat
pumps have a COP cost-efficiency of performance which
basically means that electrical power going in
is multiplied to produce more heat output. i.e if a heat pump
has a COP of 4.2 it will produce 4.2kW of heat for 1kW of electrical
input power. The COP figure is relative to
outside ambient temperature so most heat pump air to water
systems output is highly seasonal. In the middle of winter when
temperatures in the UK can go sub -20DegC this COP figure will hit sub
1.5 COP. So your 15Kw air to water heat pump boiler in the middle of
winter will only produce 7kW of heat.
Why
air to water is different to ground source heat pumps: In
all my time in the air to water heat pump sales market I have seen
drawing with heat allowances of 65watts / meter for houses under floor
heating. This seems to be a common theme when plumbers quote on a air to
water heat pump system. As in the above subject in the winter air to
water output figures can be as low as 50% rated output when the cold
season temperature is taken in to account. This is not an issue for
ground source heat pumps because the ground at which the pipes
are berried is at a constant temperature of around 10
DegC.
Things to remember: Quote
with a minimum of 100Watts / meter Take
into account the seasonal temperature outputs Try
and blend skills within your company Air
to water rated output is not linear Air
to water and ground source are completely different and
sizing calculations will be different and not comparable Manufactures
in 2013 will by law have to have a seasonal rating (SEER)
Winner
in the market:
Products:
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