The hunt for the most efficient heat pump in the world
The hunt for the most efficient heat pump in the world
A new generation of engineers has realized they can push heat pumps to the limit.
"New generation of engineers" is a bit cringe. The old generation knew thermodynamics pretty damn well. All that's changed is they're using R290 refrigerants and variable speed compressors now, but those don't change anything from a physics perspective. COP is fun but it's not even the right metric to use from a policy perspective, just like MPG. And despite being unitless, COP suffers from the same exagerative effect as MPG numbers. What matters is the carbon associated with delivering BTUs to a home, so here you can have the ridiculous case of delivering more BTUs at a higher carbon cost achieving a higher SCOP than the same exact heat pump delivering fewer BTUs at a lower total carbon cost achieving a lower SCOP for a better insulated home, and the person with the higher SCOP bragging about it like a clown. At least when the government tests COP it's a standardized test so you can actually compared equipment (somewhat).
Regardless, nerds gonna nerd and no harm done (and I also track real time energy use of my heat pump, so I consider myself a nerd).
What really matters is the wattage needed to cool the space. That's really it. The less energy used, the less the strain on the grid, or the less solar capacity needed.
Wattage is power, not energy. But I still generally prefer carbon as a metric because that's the climate issue, so by focusing on it directly we can make more informed decisions. It also incorporates time of day/seasonal (peak) impacts implicitly, which also have profound effects on the grid, more than total energy used. The essence of our comments is the same though.
“New generation of engineers” is a bit cringe.
a new sense of urgency is more like it.
Be great if I could afford one though
Not sure where you're located, but there are often significant incentives for heat pumps. If you're US and low/moderate income, there are big programs ramping up via the IRA that will cover a large percentage of the costs, assuming you're not in a total brain dead state.
Incentives are great for those who could afford it in the first place.
I saw 5 for air-air and was impressed. Then I see SCOP? Oh please. Why not change the scale again to make sure nobody knows what a good value is. Just like SEER on an air conditioner.
SCOP varies depending on environmental conditions!
Real COP or go home IMO. Watts out/watts in, no fudging numbers to confuse consumers again.
Nice read
I'm just surprised there's no "AI heat pumps" yet.
Now that's something the world is really needed. (/s)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352484722012021
AI is the new rule 34.
Artificial intelligence (AI) models for refrigeration, heat pumps, and air conditioners have emerged in recent decades. The universal approximation accuracy and prediction performances of various AI structures like feedforward neural networks, radial basis function neural networks, adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference and recurrent neural networks are encouraging interest. ... Thus, complex multi-objective problems that require high precision solutions to optimize the cost and performance of ideal RHVAC are solved using artificial intelligence techniques (Mohanraj et al., 2012).
Granted, this is modeling, not implementation, but.
"Heat pump" is just the latest buzz word. If you look up how they work its literally just a regular air conditioner with a switch to reverse the air flow.
Compressing refrigerant, allowing it to absorb thermal energy from inside the house, pumping that refrigerant to an outside coil where it releases that energy, then compressing again. This is air conditioning.
Not saying it's not useful or whatever. But it's not some incredible new technology. You could accomplish the same functionality by installing your window unit backwards.
Define efficient.
At the time of writing, real-time data suggests that for every kilowatt-hour of electricity Ritchie’s heat pump consumes, it delivers 5.5 kilowatt-hours of heat—a coefficient of performance, or COP, of 5.5.
"These installers are reaching astounding levels of efficiency by taking extra care to design low-temperature heating systems that warm rooms without using excess energy."
I'd at first really like to find a plumber that does not look at me as if I was an alien creeping out of mud when I tellem that if the central gas heater breaks down completely I want a heat pump. There's really hard conservativism in that business here.
I live in a progressive state in the US and currently renovating a house. Holy crap they all fight me tooth and nail telling me what a horrible idea they are. Nothing but problems, always break, oh my goodness what if the power goes out, the grid cannot handle the load so don't do it. These old timers need to go away.
...then your gas or oil heater doesn't work, either...
During last winter gas heater servicing I told the plumber to set the unit to 50°C heating water output so I could check if the heaters would get warm enough with a heat pump. 1,5 hours of discussion about old buildings and heat pumps resulted till he complied.
It was just a test setup that could be reverted any time.
I ended up figuring out how to do mine myself with a Mr Cool kit when the furnace died due to the fact that every hvac guy believed a 4th gen heat pump would be useless in the northeast us. It gets down to about 0F here once or twice a winter and the heat pump starts struggling to keep up around those temps but it still does its job.
Whoa, that's f* cold, but with your feedback I'm quite positive all this doomsday feedback I got can be ignored. Problem here is I'll be respnsible for uninterrupted heat and warm water for my tenants, too, so doing these calculations alone, for myself, would not bother me. But there's a ton of responsibility to care for the tenants, and I'd like a professional up for the challenge.
Are you in my state? HVAC peeps had little to no idea about heat pumps and claimed they were $20,000 to install and only rich people had them.
Why care? You say "a heat pump is going in here." There's nothing else
I would like to have someone installing the thing who is motivated like the folks in the article. Motivation=good work=probably an efficient system. But these seem to be hard to come by here.