FOR EVERYONE COMPLAINING ABOUT 400% EFFICIENCY PLEASE READ. It does not violate the laws of thermodynamics. It is simply moving more energy than is put into running the compressor. A heat pump is nothing more than an air conditioner run in reverse. When you run your air conditioner it may consume about say 6kw of power but extract 12kw of heat from your house while running. We would say its moving twice as much energy as it consumes so 200% efficient. For heat pumps same story, but the heat pumps these people are working on extracting heat from water are even more efficient. With 1kw going into the compressor motor they can extract 4kw of heat from water and use that to heat homes. We are really putting in 5kw of energy but the heat in the water is already there and doesnt cost us anything so really we are only concerned with the of electricity to drive the compressor. The result is 4kw of heat energy being moved from 1kw of electrical energy. Depending on how you look at it, its either 80% efficient or 400% efficient. We tend to look at it by how much energy we have to put into running the system which is only 1kw, in that case its 400% efficient. Which is better than gas powered boilers.
and here I was wondering why even cover this topic, I thought most new homes in the US had heatpumps=modern ac? just run the damn thing in hot mode and it can heat almost as good as it cools in the summer most new split units I see can do this
Wow well explained,...now i can also claim my 10yrs old Air-oil cooled 1200cc motorcycle engine is putting out 120Kw of heat for only an input of 12Kw of fuel in the engine because of the absence of liquid cooling (1000percent efficient at producing waste heat !!) a better heat pump than a perfomance bhp machine..hahaha
I am using AC inverter split and very happy with it. But when the temperature drops below -10 celsius is a struggle(it can freeze). I guess here is the advantage of using water pipes going underground and using water instead of air - energy conservation.
Vanishing Point I understand your point which is why I stated two efficiencies from two viewpoints they were 80% and 400% efficient. The 400% is a very loose technical definition I agree however your statement is completely wrong. The inverse is actually true. If you account for all the energy put into extracting and transporting a fossil fuel, you end up putting more energy in than you get when you burn the fuel. Lets say you only account for the fuel (lets say natural gas) if you burn 1 kWh of fuel you would expect around 90% or so to heat a structure due to some losses in the unit itself. However if you now say that 1kwh of fuel took 0.1 kwh to extract and 0.2 kwh to transport now your total input is 1.3 kwh and you still only get the same 0.9 kwh of heat. This brings efficiency down further. I assume what you are saying is really we only put 0.3 kwh total to extract 1 kwh of energy and got 0.9 kwh of heat energy (an efficiency of 300%) if you look at it with this viewpoint, then yes fossil fuels can potentially be considered thousands of percent efficient, however, there is one huge catch. The fossil fuel itself is a limited natural resource and does have a cost associated with it where as the energy extracted from heat pumps is just cycled and will always replenish and be available free of charge. This forces us to also consider the 1 kwh of fossil fuel energy extracted to have some value, this value can be neglected in the case of the heat pump. Also I know kwh are weird units to use for natural gas but the audience is probably more familiar with them and they are a unit of energy therefore not incorrect to use for this example.
Ortsa it depends on how you look at it. Let me put it as fair and straight forward as possible. Lets assume we were heating a building with electricity from solar panels. If we wanted 4kw of heat we could use the heat pump system and it would produce the 4kw of heat with a 1kw PV system. On the other hand if we had a boiler or electric heater, it would require a 4kw PV system to get the same heat. You be the judge, its not hard to see which is more beneficial or 'efficient' to us. Hence why these heat pumps are starting to be installed everywhere.
Here in Switzerland our flat's hot water (for baths and underfloor heating) comes from waste heat generated by a nearby factory. It was even part of the sale contract that we would do this. Thanks to triple glazing and sensible insulation, I've not had to turn the heating up at all this winter (it's literally on its minimum setting). I think that you'd need to refit or even rebuild a lot of properties in the UK if you wanted to really tackle the issue of wasted heat (I still see plenty of relatively "modern" buildings in the UK that have single glazing and bare minimum insulation, which seems ridiculous to me).
I live in a house in the UK that is over 200 years old and its the warmest and cheapest to heat than any of the houses I've lived in that were built in the 70's and 80's
Meanwhile the UK built cooling towers with all their coal fired power stations instead of using the heat for say heated swimming pools, old peoples homes, hospitals etc etc. You have to wonder at the general stupidity in this country, especially after the B vote.
My home in Bosnia was rebuilt after the war with thermo-blocks, polystyrene insulation and i've recently put in a wood pellet boiler, it's -7 C outside with lots of snow but inside it's warm. I bought 4 tonnes of pellets for 210 euros. The UK has a horrible building stock, old or new built.
Dave Pearson is such a good spokesman and appears so knowledgeable he should be in Govt. helping other companies adapt and utilize this sort of technology. Great show, thanks. Cheers, David.
This video gives me a nice boost! I always worry about making my channel too niche but it's great to see this channel branch out and see it still getting the same FullyCharged family engagement!
Hamish - it’s a lot easier for y’all... less land to cover and plenty of options... plus, we don’t all have such a forward looking House of Sheep like y’all do...
Probably my 4th or 5th time back to view this video since it was published, and each time I'm staggered as to why heat pumps are not in more widespread use, apart from refrigerators and air conditioners. EDIT: Watching it again in 2021 to reference a bit of David's speak, and staying to the end. Astonishing episode really. EDIT: Back yet again in May 2022. This is one of my favourite FC episodes of all time. This year is the time I can really go for it regards getting off fossil fuels competely. I still have to offset my gas heating via my renewables energy supplier, but I'm busy researching air-source heat pumps. They've improved, even since this FC video. Btw, did Robert ever get Dave Pearson's "Carpool" reference? I hope so.
Our local pool in Hobart uses heat taken by heat pump from sewage pipes that pass close by to heat the pools, it has been doing this for at least the last 15 years.
thank you for this! for the first time i actually go it. before it' didn't make sense that heat exchanges could be 400% efficient. but the way your guest drescibed it it made perfect sense. all that heat that's a by product of cooling!
Very well explained! Thank you. I think the bottom line comes down to the words _'Thermal Dynamics'_ and that is enough for me. You aren't creating energy, but moving it and/or storing it more efficiently. I like that.
I don't understand what's so difficult about getting decent audio when Robert is on the office set, it is rarely recorded correctly. There is a high-quality condenser microphone directly in front of him but he's talking into the back of it and the microphone is mostly picking up the room. Robert, with that particular microphone, turn it so that the green LED is pointing at you! The audio is always more important than the video, one wouldn't get any information out of the videos with the sound turned off! Regardless, I enjoy the videos immensely.
Another comment from Switzerland: we have heated our 4-bed new-build house for 10 years with an air heat pump. Against: it's big (1.5m x 1.5m x1.5m) it's also quite noisy. For: it's cheap - we pay about £350 a year for all our heating and hot water - and we have the room temperature at 23°C, which thanks to insulation it will maintain however cold it gets outside. Also we have not spent a penny on servicing in 10 years! I just open it up and vacuum out any leaves a couple of times a year. The electriciy is supplied on a special half-price meter and switches off at peak times, but the underfloor heating takes 24 hours to drop just a couople of dregrees, so short stops are unnoticble... One question how do the heaters in Teslas and other EVs work?
Teslas and EVs usually use air-source solid state heat pumps, using the thermoelectric effect, for their air conditioning and heating to save electricity and get greater range.
Teslas use resistive heating, not heat pumps. The majority of EV's use heat pumps. Early LEAF's used resistive heating and have since changed to use heat pumps in the most recent model years.
Thanks Robert, I love a heat pump. I install domestic air and ground source systems, still amazed by how the technology works. Loving the growth of the show.
I am so glad you covered this topic, I am currently writing my thesis on the topic of heat pumps, well small scale heat pumps Vs district heating. This is great!
The first winter we were in our home, I switched to heat. In Mid-January, I discovered I had set it to "emergency heat" rather than "heat." The emergency heat uses resistance electric, whereas regular heat is a heat pump. February's bill was $200 less than December or January. This is just an "old-fashioned air-to-air heat pump.
I think you’re talking into the back of your mic. I’ve not used that one, but usually the brand name should be facing you Robert. Interesting topic - thanks.
Yeah, another one had it at 90 degrees to Robert - same effect, lots of room sound. I put a comment, but obviously they get buried in the many other comments. Pity as it would improve matters immensely!
sounds like the wrong mic to my ear, but you're probably right. They need to pay attention. It lets down the rest of the production more than I think they realize.
Because it's backwards, it's picking up the reflected room sound rather than your voice Robert. Looking at the specs, the way you have it, your voice level is at least 10db lower than it should be!
A few years ago we renovated a ~1700 thatched cob cottage, not on the gas grid. We needed to lay in a new floor & you can't fix radiators to cob walls, so we laid in underfloor heating and fitted a Panasonic heat pump. It was quite expensive, but the result was so superior to any of the alternatives it probably added a lot to the property value. I don't live there any more unfortunately, so I don't know about it's reliability over the last couple of years, but apart from some comissioning issues we had no trouble for a couple of years. No oil tank in the garden, and no need to arrange deliveries. just an air con panel round the back of the house. Running costs equivalent to the alternatives (more expensive than mains gas, but that wasn't an option - with solar panels you could get cheaper than gas running costs though)
Excellent video Robert! Heat pumps are vastly under-used in my opinion. Even the air-to-air reversable split air conditioning type that I have installed in both my office and man shed are highly efficient and great for heating. The running cost is less that a third of what it would cost to use an electric blower heater. These large industrial water source units explained in the video are even more efficient.
Some folks have mentioned this channel's report on the SunAmp (I think it was) heat-storage system awhile back. Combining that technology with a heat pump would be awesome: The heat pump would be connected to extract heat from the back side of the solar PV panels, and move it into the storage tanks. Instead of using just straight resistance heat for "charging" the thermal tanks as SunAmp did, you'd get the benefit of the heat pump delivering more thermal energy than the electrical energy it consumes, AND the solar panels would be chilled in the bargain, making them much more efficient as well.
This Is a fascinating subject that needs to be further explored. In Alaska, they use stored underground water tanks for thermal heat. underground its a constant 55 f
For the uninformed 7-10 feet below ground/dirt level the earth's temp is 55°F. You can take freezing cold water ay 32 and slowly raise it in an underground tank, needing less energy to heat water 110f to take showers and such.
You should come to Helsinki to see how these things are done in big scale here. Most of our homes are heated with remote heating. There's plumming to cover almost 100% of homes in Helsinki and many other big cities too. I'm 51 and I've lived my whole life in appartments and houses that were remote heated. Our powerplants create heat and electricity at the same time. Also we are using heat pumps in MW scale and use our sewage water as heat source, so there's a river for you ;). In Espoo we are making a 7km deep hole to collect heat for water and create 40MW of heat from that for remote heating. Here is one heat pump example from Helsinki www.helen.fi/en/company/energy/energy-production/power-plants/katri-vala-heating-and-cooling-plant/
Timo Grönroos _"Our powerplants create heat and electricity at the same time."_ The advantage of that is that there are little line losses as the electricity is generated locally and wasted heat is used to pump to homes to heat hem. But, the local powerplants create local pollution. The UK had cheap gas for decades and cheap coal for hundreds of years, so did not have to develop such systems. But they made some of the world's most advanced heat pump systems before oil was on tap from the North Sea. St.George's school in Wallasey near Liverpool: ssl.c.photoshelter.com/img-get/I0000DK.SoxCk0zI/s/750/750/LBP3266.jpg The now named Capital Buildings in Liverpool, this was eco before it was fashionable - 1973. To the eco aspects. The building has minimal glass to conserve heat. The building uses water that seeps into the under river Merseyrail Metro tunnel, built 1870/80s, between Liverpool and Birkenhead. This water is pumped out of the tunnel being a near constant 12C - water seeps through the riverbed rock and is heated by the earth before it reaches the tunnel. After use, the water is discharged into nearby storm drains, helping to keep them flushed and stopping an odour problem which they then suffered. A heat pump using thermal storage uses this water to heat and cool the building, giving minimal energy usage. In winter the building is heated for a few hours on Monday morning and for the rest of the week the heat from people and office machines is usually enough to keep the building warm. At times it requires cooling in winter. In summer the 12C water at times is enough to keep the building cool, if not the heat pump cuts in and assists. The quantity of water pumped from the tunnel was more than required for the building, some of the water was sold to an adjacent insurance building under development at that time. I believe the heat pumps were the largest in the world employed anywhere for heating/cooling a building at that time. www.hevac-heritage.org/electronic_books/M&NW_anniversary/Section-14_LiverpoolDailyPost.pdf
How is the heat plumbed to homes & businesses? I'm assuming pipes? Made of what? Filled with water or something else? Are they insulated? With what? What is the heat loss per distance? Once it gets to the building how is it transferred to the atmosphere; radiators or some other more complex equipment??
Filled with water, about 90 degrees. There is a heat exchange unit inside a house or appartment building. 90 degrees water leaves at around 20 degrees back to powerstation. www.ess.fi/incoming/img2411319/qlp67z/ALTERNATES/w980h655/1121648_.jpg
Add efficiency and you will have a better projection of the future. Even a car that uses gasoline today uses far less than one from 30 years back. All the lightbulbs in my house are the efficient sort when I bought it they weren't.
Brilliant stuff as usual, heat pumps are pritty nifty! =) Robert, have you looked into installing an air source heatpump at home? Temperatures where you live are perfect for it. Since they are reversible as well you get the benefit of being able to cool your home in the hottest summer days too, powered through your splendid solar array or Tesla battery. They are very common here in Norway, and have improved quite a bit in time, both in terms of being more efficient during the coldest days and price. Gas is quite rare, so instead of that you find older houses with Diesel heaters that are being replaced by for example bolt-in air-source to water heat pumps.
This guy has the best job. All of the pieces of using every bit of renewable energy we can generate are falling into place. Heat pumps and hot water for storing unneeded wind and solar for later use is a great idea. By the same token, they could used heat pumps to chill or freeze water and store excess power for air conditioning.
Heat pumps are very common in Sweden. We have bergsvärme (a big hole in the ground), luftvärme (heat from air) and frånluftsvärmepump (taking heat from ventilation air). Arlanda airport has very big tanks of hot and cool water for warming in the winter and cooling in the summer.
Finally, people are learning about the amazing value of A/C. My house plan is to have a A/C and Heat pump set up (Extra the heat and the cold from one unit) then store it. so during the day when the solar is running, I run the system but I use the cooling and heat when I need it, thus giving me very cheap storage. It's incredible to me that this is not something that is commonplace. Temperature control is amazing with this type of system and it's orders of magnitude cheaper to store energy this way. 81.7 kWh in a 1000 litre hot water tank at 90°C tell me what battery can store that amount of energy? (Hot water storage tank $1,236 per 400L in Australia)
District heating is awesome, I wish it was available where I live. It's insane that you're trying to heat your house and hot water while nearby some data center or industrial process is desperately trying to get rid of heat. I installed a Unico air to water heat pump a decade ago and it worked, but repairs were expensive. Air to water heat pumps are hard to get in California and few HVAC installers have experience with them, a vicious circle. Ductless mini-splits (outside heat pump moves heat or cold to indoor wall fan) are starting to take off.
Evacuated tubes and other solar collectors are a relatively cheap and often overlooked technology for heating water and as part of a seasonal thermal storage system.
Great story. I'd love to see more about renewable heat, as it hardly gets the attention it deserves for its masive potential to reduce mined and fossil fuel- sourced energy. For examply, a study conducted in AU in 2014 found that the amount of renewable heat being harvested was about double the amount of renewable electricity from PV panels but the issue is hardly recognized. Another great thing about utilising this heat is that it is harvested right where the heat is needed. In Australia the cost of heat from heat pumps is about 1/4 to 1/2 that of gas depending on the equipment and regional gas prices.
Thank you so much for that video. I didn't knew that you can heat your house with a heatpump system. Here in germany we rely mostly on gas and a little bit on oil and wood too. I don't think that there are much installed heatpumps in residential houses.
Why would I bother, people aren't looking to learn anything on RUclips, just reinforce their existing world views. If I did make a video about heat pumps I doubt you'd be interested as I wouldn't approach the subject with a blatant agenda. *I do like heat pumps, we should use them more, however they're not always cost effective.
Didnt know there where large scale heatpumps. I converted a air/air to a air/water heatpump and it is nice to heat the house without making smoke. :) This was really a nice video.
In the Netherlands this is standard to do many companies make these and many homes use heatpomps in the Netherlands. Because we are moving away from gas burning new build homes only get a electrical connection gas is no longer used. So these houses have heat pumps . We build hotels with big heat pumps. But remember the more then 400% only goes up if the temperature difference is good. Air to water heatpomps only work if the outside air is above 7 degrees Celsius
Back in the 80's I worked for Hydraulics Research near Wallingford in Oxfordshire, they had a pair of heat pumps in their new office building that housed the new computer suite. The heat pumps extracted the heat from the computer suite and used that to heat the offices. The computer suite produced 10kw of unwanted heat that would be wasted with a conventional cooling system.
Heat pumps are the wisest way to warm and cool spaces but I still think that we could do so much more in the design of our structures. We build the stupidest houses when it comes to heating and cooling. New houses should have very thick sturdy walls and consequently be so well isulated that you simply never have to heat them. Residents would be kept warm with their own body heat, solar, or more substatially, the electronics they operate within. In my humble opinion, if you are using energy to directly heat your home, you need more insolation. :-)
As our electronics get more and more efficient there's less and less waste heat. Just think about the warmth desktop PCs, plasma tvs, incandescent light bulbs, etc used to put out!
So we need to go get more electronics and power strips for them so we use more electricity to keep warm, right? (usually what happens. :-) ) Of course it would be more prudent to further insolate our homes to compensate and try to have enclosed garages to charge our EVs in so we can benefit from the warmth that comes from charging. If I had the resources, I'd make my home out of space I could dig out of the side of a hill like a hobbit. That would be easy to heat and cool, so much better than living in a wind-blown stick structure out in the elements. ..but we are up against a catch 22. Banks will not write loans to build such structures making them rare and unorthodox, which is the very reason why they don't write those lones in the first place.
To just heat your house with body heat most of your house would need to be occupied by insulation. Well I should say that goes for areas with serious winters.
I checked out what I think is his official site and he seems much more interested in energy production methods than efficient architecture. (strong on solar and wind and generally negative on everything else) Still, it seems that any good efficient construction design is going to be snubbed by bank loan officers because they are unorthodox. And they are rare and unorthodox because no-one will loan money to build such structures. You need an egg to get a chicken or a chicken to get an egg and since you have neither, you can expect it to stay that way. :-(
Edward Cooper: In a lot of places in the US, the heating is done by burning fuel and the cooling by heat pump. The situation is partly caused by the fact that the landlord pays to put in the system and the tenant pays for the fuel. Under earlier admins, there was an effort to change the heating systems to more efficient ones. This was more for national security than for saving the planet but the effect is the same. A nation where everything depends on a lot of fuel makes for an easy target for the bad guys.
You can already order to install this in your house for years. They will drill pipes into the ground. The only problem with existing houses is that you typically will have to switch to a lower temperature system (40-45°C), for example floor heating, to replace your central heating radiators which workes at much higher temperatures to create convection (70°C).
Yes. My 'fridge and freezer do "heat" my kitchen. The heat they give off warms my house because its insulation holds it in. Same with all the light bulbs. Even CFLs give off some heat.. but that will be less as we progressively swap to LEDs. None of it is wasted heat if it is kept in the house.
effyleven It's wasted in the summer when the last thing you want is more heat inside. People made the same argument when 100 watt incandescent bulbs were phased out and it's still nonsense for all but 3 or 4 months of the year.
If you don't understand the subject or the numbers involved then I would recommend that you do a little research before making a comment that will make you look quite a bit foolish. Heat pump systems work very well and the numbers quoted here are typical for a large system with water sourced heat.
Heads Tails The geothermal stuff works quite well at the residential level. At larger scale, though, you run the risk of exporting too much heat in the summer, which the winter cycle can’t catch up to, resulting in significantly elevated ground temperatures. The river approach works really well to solve that weakness.
The thing is that this is not traditional geothermal, it is a water sourced heat pump system. Take a look how the systems work and then come back and comment or do you need someone to explain the difference to you? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_heat_pump en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump The biggest risk of an under sized geothermal heat pump system is to cool the ground to much in a cold part of the world or heat it to much in a hot part of the world, that is why they use rivers and also design the size of the system to match the load.
An understanding of the subject is not needed to know "400% efficient" is wrong. Essentially, the heat energy is already there and he just needs the equivalent 1/4 of that energy to move it elsewhere. That's not efficiency, however, as he is not generating heat with it. As used in the video, it's like saying it takes 1 watt to heat up a whole house just because that's how much power is used to open the furnace door.
JoeyRodz74 it’s not wrong to say it’s 400% efficient. Efficiency is the ratio of energy you put in to *useful* energy you get back out. It makes no difference that some of the useful energy comes from the surrounding environment rather than your input energy. After all, every type of "energy generation" is just moving energy from one form to another.
I got off gas back in the 90s when I installed a geothermal heatpump. About two years ago I've gone 100% solar. That is for all energy usage at home, including 2 plug-in cars, on a net basis.
Heat pumps are how most houses in Scandinavia and France are heated nowadays. It is an obvious solution. Get an air to water heat pump and save 2/3 of your heating bill.
Unfortunately that's true. It doesn't make economic sense everywhere at the moment. But as electricity from renewables decreases the overal cost of electricity and as people are pushing on reduction of subsidies to oil/gas companies, these differences will continue to shrink rapidly and the economic benefit of the heat pumps will become more obvious. So I think companies like the Neat Pumps have a bright future ahead of them.
Air source heat pumps have a payback period of 5-7 years in the UK, currently. It absolutely makes sense to build every new home to passive house standards with air source heat pumps, a south facing roof with building integrated solar PV and an electric vehicle charging outlet. Lack of political will is the only problem in the UK.
David Beaumont I lived in a city and they did the same thing but unfortunately they were taking heat from the largest diesel electrical generator.....IN THE WORLD! It used so much heat and so they touted it as a green project. This was a really interesting video, I am almost getting optimistic for our future. It's about time since today I went for a bike ride in our Polar Vortex, it was -4° leaving and -5° when I got back. Meanwhile, over the North Pole today it is 1° and raining. And they haven't had the sun since September. We need to put a sense of urgency into our transition to renewables since we have to stop putting CO2 into the atmosphere.
I think that one of the earliest attempts to use heat pumps on a relatively large scale was the original heating for the Royal Festival Hall in London. Although described in Wikipedia as a ground source heat pump, it used the water from the River Thames. I also used a pair of Merlin engines(!) to drive it. Sadly it was not a success and It was quickly replaced. It apparently made the Hall too hot.
You mentioned heat storage with large water tanks but you forgot the very interesting video that you posted earlier of another Scottish company, Sunamp, that uses phase change materials for heat storage. I can't wait to see a model, then house, then community using all sorts of technology to run all their energy needs on renewable energy. I'm sure it could happen now with the right vision and investment!
This was an amazingly great episode! This man is really interesting and I would have liked to hear much more from him. This concept of heating shoe towns with heat pumps, the scalability of it and the overall meshing of energy (heat/cold) usage with wind and solar would be a great episode to do. As a Canadian who traveled to the England and Scotland, I loved his accent. One of the most beautiful English accents out there. Thank you for making these episodes. I love learning about what is out there. It would be great if you would do a mini-series on passive and net-zero (or net-positive) housing. Thank you again.
In my city and many other cities around Sweden we get our heating and electrisity from burning the city's waste. Sure not super green with burning waste but the heat generated goes to making elecrisity and then goes out to the homes to heat them and goes back to be heated again. Trying to make the most out of what it is, plus it is pretty cheap.
Wow that's brilliant! What a great idea. Though Rob I'm surprised you don't have an Air Source Heat Pump, my parents installed one back in 2009 and it's still going strong.
Right Glasgow let’s get a few of these in the Clyde heating the city centre offices, businesses, works, Hospitals 🤔👏👏👏 we already have the third biggest onshore wind farm on our doorstep.
So i saw in the paper some 30 years ago here in Australia they had some floating pontoons off the coast that would use the temperature gradient of the ocean to make electricity. So a gas at room temperature cool it a couple degrees with cold water from the bottom of the ocean to a liquid then as it turns back to a gas it turns a turbine producing power for basically free. What happen to them. In my research into them i found an article that stated they had one on a spanish ship back in the 1800's the only problem back then and 30 years ago was corrosion which is not a problem now with the new materials we have.
Good talk. First we have to start insulating our houses very well. Double glazing HR++ / Solar-collectors / Central Heating HR ++ / Warm-water HR ++ .... BTW We have air-heating in our house ... a heat pump can be fitted in this system... This was originally made for cooling the air in summer, but I think it can be reversed.
I always was intrigued by the heat given off by flexing a piece of plastic and wondered if this could somehow be used to produce heat 'without any input'. Could tidal maybe run a system like this?! I'd love to try and prototype something to that end.
I think you should make a program about inverter fridges. Every home has a fridge. So if all homes use these new fridges there will be at least 50% if not 70% saving on the electricity used for cooling food. How many fridges do you have in the UK? We have about 30 million in Egypt.
A small duct and pump can redirect the waste heat from behind fridge/freezer , for example, through a wall into a small room to help heat it. Even a low powered fan blowing air from near the ceiling to the floor level gives more 'warming' than the power used by the fan. Don't just 'make' heat, move it about.
0:27 "How do we produce heat without burning anything?" I might be missing something blatantly obvious, but what's the problem with electrical radiators? We mainly use those to heat up our houses here in Norway, and it works just fine. I'm not criticizing heat pumps, but that line was poorly thought through I think.
One has to understand that home heating in the UK is via water filled radiators. The water is heated up by a natural gas boiler in the vast majority of homes. Prior to natural gas boilers, fireplaces burned wood or coal. Because home heat almost exclusively done via natural gas, then those in the UK may mistakenly think that burning things is the only way to heat a home. My experience in the US with heat pumps, is that in very cold temperatures the heat pump struggles to keep the home warm. A heat pump system that cools by heat pump and heats using natural gas has no problem keeping the house warm during cold winters days/nights.
Air source heat pumps struggle in the cold because there is less heat to be extracted from the air. Ground source, including water, heat pumps are extracting heat from a source with a relatively stable temperature so the efficiency is consistent.
I believe the issue with air sourced heat pumps is that they can only add or subtract a limited amount of heat to the home. So if its 15F outside and my thermostat is set to 70F it has to be able maintain an 55F difference between inside and out. In the summer if its 100F outside and set to 70F inside, the unit has a 30F differential to maintain. A better insulated home would help reduce the heat energy necessary to maintain a given heat differential or allow for a larger differential for the same heat energy input.
No, the heat difference is not the problem. Low temperature outside makes it harder to gather because 1) the compressor is designed to work in a given range, and lowering that range is hard, 2) less heat in the air means it needs to process more air, so bigger fans, larger radiators, etc. Mostly, though it is really about power, a heat pump is sized for a particular power capacity, a greater temperature difference increases the power loss of the building. Yes, better insulation helps on all these issues.
Shouldn't the Samson logo point to the speaker (e. g. you) since the mic is directional? It sounds so indirect and with so much "room" in this recording.
Great episode, but I just wish you would have explained the theory behind the idea a bit more. Nonetheless, great show and I'm so glad I've discovered this!
Very educational - Robert that was another incredible Fully charged episode! Can you get some sound absorbing sponges in your microphone room? It’s quite ‘echoey’
Very interesting, I wonder if you could cool (or assist cool) your fridges/freezers at the same time as (partially) heating your home? 6ish feet down the temperature is way warmer than a winter day here in Canada
Noel Dillabough One college in the USA used a ground sources heat pump. It extracted heat in the winter and by the end of the winter the ground was like tundra. Then this cooled earth was used to extract _coolth,_ yes there is such a word, to cool the building. I am pretty sure they used air heating/cooling. It is best to have ground the sun shines on.
FOR EVERYONE COMPLAINING ABOUT 400% EFFICIENCY PLEASE READ.
It does not violate the laws of thermodynamics. It is simply moving more energy than is put into running the compressor. A heat pump is nothing more than an air conditioner run in reverse. When you run your air conditioner it may consume about say 6kw of power but extract 12kw of heat from your house while running. We would say its moving twice as much energy as it consumes so 200% efficient. For heat pumps same story, but the heat pumps these people are working on extracting heat from water are even more efficient. With 1kw going into the compressor motor they can extract 4kw of heat from water and use that to heat homes. We are really putting in 5kw of energy but the heat in the water is already there and doesnt cost us anything so really we are only concerned with the of electricity to drive the compressor. The result is 4kw of heat energy being moved from 1kw of electrical energy. Depending on how you look at it, its either 80% efficient or 400% efficient. We tend to look at it by how much energy we have to put into running the system which is only 1kw, in that case its 400% efficient. Which is better than gas powered boilers.
and here I was wondering why even cover this topic, I thought most new homes in the US had heatpumps=modern ac? just run the damn thing in hot mode and it can heat almost as good as it cools in the summer
most new split units I see can do this
Wow well explained,...now i can also claim my 10yrs old Air-oil cooled 1200cc motorcycle engine is putting out 120Kw of heat for only an input of 12Kw of fuel in the engine because of the absence of liquid cooling (1000percent efficient at producing waste heat !!) a better heat pump than a perfomance bhp machine..hahaha
I am using AC inverter split and very happy with it. But when the temperature drops below -10 celsius is a struggle(it can freeze). I guess here is the advantage of using water pipes going underground and using water instead of air - energy conservation.
Vanishing Point I understand your point which is why I stated two efficiencies from two viewpoints they were 80% and 400% efficient. The 400% is a very loose technical definition I agree however your statement is completely wrong. The inverse is actually true. If you account for all the energy put into extracting and transporting a fossil fuel, you end up putting more energy in than you get when you burn the fuel. Lets say you only account for the fuel (lets say natural gas) if you burn 1 kWh of fuel you would expect around 90% or so to heat a structure due to some losses in the unit itself. However if you now say that 1kwh of fuel took 0.1 kwh to extract and 0.2 kwh to transport now your total input is 1.3 kwh and you still only get the same 0.9 kwh of heat. This brings efficiency down further. I assume what you are saying is really we only put 0.3 kwh total to extract 1 kwh of energy and got 0.9 kwh of heat energy (an efficiency of 300%) if you look at it with this viewpoint, then yes fossil fuels can potentially be considered thousands of percent efficient, however, there is one huge catch. The fossil fuel itself is a limited natural resource and does have a cost associated with it where as the energy extracted from heat pumps is just cycled and will always replenish and be available free of charge. This forces us to also consider the 1 kwh of fossil fuel energy extracted to have some value, this value can be neglected in the case of the heat pump. Also I know kwh are weird units to use for natural gas but the audience is probably more familiar with them and they are a unit of energy therefore not incorrect to use for this example.
Ortsa it depends on how you look at it. Let me put it as fair and straight forward as possible. Lets assume we were heating a building with electricity from solar panels. If we wanted 4kw of heat we could use the heat pump system and it would produce the 4kw of heat with a 1kw PV system. On the other hand if we had a boiler or electric heater, it would require a 4kw PV system to get the same heat. You be the judge, its not hard to see which is more beneficial or 'efficient' to us. Hence why these heat pumps are starting to be installed everywhere.
Here in Switzerland our flat's hot water (for baths and underfloor heating) comes from waste heat generated by a nearby factory. It was even part of the sale contract that we would do this.
Thanks to triple glazing and sensible insulation, I've not had to turn the heating up at all this winter (it's literally on its minimum setting).
I think that you'd need to refit or even rebuild a lot of properties in the UK if you wanted to really tackle the issue of wasted heat (I still see plenty of relatively "modern" buildings in the UK that have single glazing and bare minimum insulation, which seems ridiculous to me).
Yes, a lot of buildings in the UK have fairly poor insulation from the windows to the walls
My house is freezing - were spending about €200 a month on heating!
I live in a house in the UK that is over 200 years old and its the warmest and cheapest to heat than any of the houses I've lived in that were built in the 70's and 80's
Meanwhile the UK built cooling towers with all their coal fired power stations instead of using the heat for say heated swimming pools, old peoples homes, hospitals etc etc.
You have to wonder at the general stupidity in this country, especially after the B vote.
My home in Bosnia was rebuilt after the war with thermo-blocks, polystyrene insulation and i've recently put in a wood pellet boiler, it's -7 C outside with lots of snow but inside it's warm. I bought 4 tonnes of pellets for 210 euros.
The UK has a horrible building stock, old or new built.
Dave Pearson is such a good spokesman and appears so knowledgeable he should be in Govt. helping other companies adapt and utilize this sort of technology. Great show, thanks. Cheers, David.
This video gives me a nice boost! I always worry about making my channel too niche but it's great to see this channel branch out and see it still getting the same FullyCharged family engagement!
in new zealand nearly everyone has a heat pump now, we generate our power at 80% renewables on average. come on, catch up :P
Hamish - it’s a lot easier for y’all... less land to cover and plenty of options... plus, we don’t all have such a forward looking House of Sheep like y’all do...
I can't believe it's taken me this long to go from 2007 era Scrapheap Challenge to this. Great channel, can't wait to dig into the back catalogue!
Probably my 4th or 5th time back to view this video since it was published, and each time I'm staggered as to why heat pumps are not in more widespread use, apart from refrigerators and air conditioners.
EDIT: Watching it again in 2021 to reference a bit of David's speak, and staying to the end. Astonishing episode really.
EDIT: Back yet again in May 2022. This is one of my favourite FC episodes of all time. This year is the time I can really go for it regards getting off fossil fuels competely. I still have to offset my gas heating via my renewables energy supplier, but I'm busy researching air-source heat pumps. They've improved, even since this FC video.
Btw, did Robert ever get Dave Pearson's "Carpool" reference? I hope so.
I had a ground source heat pump installed in October of last year here in upstate NY, it has worked out very well.
This ''heat pump'' these cats are talking about, is actually refering to the reverse bias of a refrigerator system right?
Our local pool in Hobart uses heat taken by heat pump from sewage pipes that pass close by to heat the pools, it has been doing this for at least the last 15 years.
So cool. Or should that be warm?
Dave Pearson is great speaker. Thanks for having him on.
Mind blowing background music. Content was brilliant and the music made it even better. Keep making it better Robert. Love from India.
absolutely loved this, the guy was super nice :)
thank you for this! for the first time i actually go it. before it' didn't make sense that heat exchanges could be 400% efficient. but the way your guest drescibed it it made perfect sense. all that heat that's a by product of cooling!
It’s fantastic to see our engineers are doing something to sort out problems of climate change
Fascinating! You are really hitting it for six with the content! Thank you for providing this invaluable resource!
Very well explained! Thank you. I think the bottom line comes down to the words _'Thermal Dynamics'_ and that is enough for me. You aren't creating energy, but moving it and/or storing it more efficiently. I like that.
I don't understand what's so difficult about getting decent audio when Robert is on the office set, it is rarely recorded correctly. There is a high-quality condenser microphone directly in front of him but he's talking into the back of it and the microphone is mostly picking up the room. Robert, with that particular microphone, turn it so that the green LED is pointing at you! The audio is always more important than the video, one wouldn't get any information out of the videos with the sound turned off! Regardless, I enjoy the videos immensely.
That man talked a lot of sense - I wish them well with the heat pump side of their business.
Another comment from Switzerland: we have heated our 4-bed new-build house for 10 years with an air heat pump.
Against: it's big (1.5m x 1.5m x1.5m) it's also quite noisy.
For: it's cheap - we pay about £350 a year for all our heating and hot water - and we have the room temperature at 23°C, which thanks to insulation it will maintain however cold it gets outside. Also we have not spent a penny on servicing in 10 years! I just open it up and vacuum out any leaves a couple of times a year. The electriciy is supplied on a special half-price meter and switches off at peak times, but the underfloor heating takes 24 hours to drop just a couople of dregrees, so short stops are unnoticble...
One question how do the heaters in Teslas and other EVs work?
Teslas and EVs usually use air-source solid state heat pumps, using the thermoelectric effect, for their air conditioning and heating to save electricity and get greater range.
Teslas use resistive heating, not heat pumps. The majority of EV's use heat pumps. Early LEAF's used resistive heating and have since changed to use heat pumps in the most recent model years.
Notlib - interestingly we’re now seeing the big auto makers all putting heat pumps in their cars to regulate battery temps...
Thanks Robert, I love a heat pump.
I install domestic air and ground source systems, still amazed by how the technology works.
Loving the growth of the show.
I am so glad you covered this topic, I am currently writing my thesis on the topic of heat pumps, well small scale heat pumps Vs district heating. This is great!
Gorgeous cinematography at the start of the VT
The first winter we were in our home, I switched to heat. In Mid-January, I discovered I had set it to "emergency heat" rather than "heat." The emergency heat uses resistance electric, whereas regular heat is a heat pump. February's bill was $200 less than December or January. This is just an "old-fashioned air-to-air heat pump.
I think you’re talking into the back of your mic. I’ve not used that one, but usually the brand name should be facing you Robert. Interesting topic - thanks.
Yeah, another one had it at 90 degrees to Robert - same effect, lots of room sound. I put a comment, but obviously they get buried in the many other comments. Pity as it would improve matters immensely!
sounds like the wrong mic to my ear, but you're probably right. They need to pay attention. It lets down the rest of the production more than I think they realize.
Yes really odd, especially when the factory interview was sound perfect using little shirt mics, and he’s been in television for doncs.
Yes I agree, it sounds like the on-camera mic rather than the monster one in shot.
Because it's backwards, it's picking up the reflected room sound rather than your voice Robert. Looking at the specs, the way you have it, your voice level is at least 10db lower than it should be!
A few years ago we renovated a ~1700 thatched cob cottage, not on the gas grid. We needed to lay in a new floor & you can't fix radiators to cob walls, so we laid in underfloor heating and fitted a Panasonic heat pump. It was quite expensive, but the result was so superior to any of the alternatives it probably added a lot to the property value. I don't live there any more unfortunately, so I don't know about it's reliability over the last couple of years, but apart from some comissioning issues we had no trouble for a couple of years. No oil tank in the garden, and no need to arrange deliveries. just an air con panel round the back of the house. Running costs equivalent to the alternatives (more expensive than mains gas, but that wasn't an option - with solar panels you could get cheaper than gas running costs though)
Excellent video Robert! Heat pumps are vastly under-used in my opinion. Even the air-to-air reversable split air conditioning type that I have installed in both my office and man shed are highly efficient and great for heating. The running cost is less that a third of what it would cost to use an electric blower heater. These large industrial water source units explained in the video are even more efficient.
Some folks have mentioned this channel's report on the SunAmp (I think it was) heat-storage system awhile back. Combining that technology with a heat pump would be awesome: The heat pump would be connected to extract heat from the back side of the solar PV panels, and move it into the storage tanks. Instead of using just straight resistance heat for "charging" the thermal tanks as SunAmp did, you'd get the benefit of the heat pump delivering more thermal energy than the electrical energy it consumes, AND the solar panels would be chilled in the bargain, making them much more efficient as well.
This Is a fascinating subject that needs to be further explored. In Alaska, they use stored underground water tanks for thermal heat. underground its a constant 55 f
You must be in the south bit of Alaska. A lot of the state has a much lower ground temperature.
The deeper you go the hotter it gets, so it's a simple matter of depth to make it work.
For the uninformed 7-10 feet below ground/dirt level the earth's temp is 55°F. You can take freezing cold water ay 32 and slowly raise it in an underground tank, needing less energy to heat water 110f to take showers and such.
Very interesting. This channel just gets better with every video 👍🏻
You should come to Helsinki to see how these things are done in big scale here. Most of our homes are heated with remote heating. There's plumming to cover almost 100% of homes in Helsinki and many other big cities too. I'm 51 and I've lived my whole life in appartments and houses that were remote heated. Our powerplants create heat and electricity at the same time. Also we are using heat pumps in MW scale and use our sewage water as heat source, so there's a river for you ;). In Espoo we are making a 7km deep hole to collect heat for water and create 40MW of heat from that for remote heating.
Here is one heat pump example from Helsinki
www.helen.fi/en/company/energy/energy-production/power-plants/katri-vala-heating-and-cooling-plant/
Timo Grönroos
_"Our powerplants create heat and electricity at the same time."_
The advantage of that is that there are little line losses as the electricity is generated locally and wasted heat is used to pump to homes to heat hem. But, the local powerplants create local pollution.
The UK had cheap gas for decades and cheap coal for hundreds of years, so did not have to develop such systems. But they made some of the world's most advanced heat pump systems before oil was on tap from the North Sea.
St.George's school in Wallasey near Liverpool:
ssl.c.photoshelter.com/img-get/I0000DK.SoxCk0zI/s/750/750/LBP3266.jpg
The now named Capital Buildings in Liverpool, this was eco before it was fashionable - 1973.
To the eco aspects. The building has minimal glass to conserve heat. The building uses water that seeps into the under river Merseyrail Metro tunnel, built 1870/80s, between Liverpool and Birkenhead. This water is pumped out of the tunnel being a near constant 12C - water seeps through the riverbed rock and is heated by the earth before it reaches the tunnel. After use, the water is discharged into nearby storm drains, helping to keep them flushed and stopping an odour problem which they then suffered. A heat pump using thermal storage uses this water to heat and cool the building, giving minimal energy usage.
In winter the building is heated for a few hours on Monday morning and for the rest of the week the heat from people and office machines is usually enough to keep the building warm. At times it requires cooling in winter.
In summer the 12C water at times is enough to keep the building cool, if not the heat pump cuts in and assists.
The quantity of water pumped from the tunnel was more than required for the building, some of the water was sold to an adjacent insurance building under development at that time.
I believe the heat pumps were the largest in the world employed anywhere for heating/cooling a building at that time.
www.hevac-heritage.org/electronic_books/M&NW_anniversary/Section-14_LiverpoolDailyPost.pdf
How is the heat plumbed to homes & businesses? I'm assuming pipes? Made of what? Filled with water or something else? Are they insulated? With what? What is the heat loss per distance? Once it gets to the building how is it transferred to the atmosphere; radiators or some other more complex equipment??
Filled with water, about 90 degrees. There is a heat exchange unit inside a house or appartment building. 90 degrees water leaves at around 20 degrees back to powerstation.
www.ess.fi/incoming/img2411319/qlp67z/ALTERNATES/w980h655/1121648_.jpg
Here's something nice also:
www.helen.fi/en/news/2018/Seasonal-energy-storage-facility-is-planned-for-the-Kruunuvuorenranta-rock-caverns/
Very educational. That guy sure knows what he’s talking about. One can only imagine where the world will be in 10 years thanks to renewables.
Add efficiency and you will have a better projection of the future.
Even a car that uses gasoline today uses far less than one from 30 years back. All the lightbulbs in my house are the efficient sort when I bought it they weren't.
Brilliant stuff as usual, heat pumps are pritty nifty! =)
Robert, have you looked into installing an air source heatpump at home? Temperatures where you live are perfect for it. Since they are reversible as well you get the benefit of being able to cool your home in the hottest summer days too, powered through your splendid solar array or Tesla battery.
They are very common here in Norway, and have improved quite a bit in time, both in terms of being more efficient during the coldest days and price. Gas is quite rare, so instead of that you find older houses with Diesel heaters that are being replaced by for example bolt-in air-source to water heat pumps.
This guy has the best job. All of the pieces of using every bit of renewable energy we can generate are falling into place. Heat pumps and hot water for storing unneeded wind and solar for later use is a great idea. By the same token, they could used heat pumps to chill or freeze water and store excess power for air conditioning.
shout out to everyone not understanding a thing but feeling excited as hell.
Heat pumps are very common in Sweden. We have bergsvärme (a big hole in the ground), luftvärme (heat from air) and frånluftsvärmepump (taking heat from ventilation air). Arlanda airport has very big tanks of hot and cool water for warming in the winter and cooling in the summer.
Finally, people are learning about the amazing value of A/C. My house plan is to have a A/C and Heat pump set up (Extra the heat and the cold from one unit) then store it. so during the day when the solar is running, I run the system but I use the cooling and heat when I need it, thus giving me very cheap storage. It's incredible to me that this is not something that is commonplace. Temperature control is amazing with this type of system and it's orders of magnitude cheaper to store energy this way. 81.7 kWh in a 1000 litre hot water tank at 90°C tell me what battery can store that amount of energy? (Hot water storage tank $1,236 per 400L in Australia)
District heating is awesome, I wish it was available where I live. It's insane that you're trying to heat your house and hot water while nearby some data center or industrial process is desperately trying to get rid of heat. I installed a Unico air to water heat pump a decade ago and it worked, but repairs were expensive. Air to water heat pumps are hard to get in California and few HVAC installers have experience with them, a vicious circle. Ductless mini-splits (outside heat pump moves heat or cold to indoor wall fan) are starting to take off.
Evacuated tubes and other solar collectors are a relatively cheap and often overlooked technology for heating water and as part of a seasonal thermal storage system.
Great story. I'd love to see more about renewable heat, as it hardly gets the attention it deserves for its masive potential to reduce mined and fossil fuel- sourced energy.
For examply, a study conducted in AU in 2014 found that the amount of renewable heat being harvested was about double the amount of renewable electricity from PV panels but the issue is hardly recognized.
Another great thing about utilising this heat is that it is harvested right where the heat is needed.
In Australia the cost of heat from heat pumps is about 1/4 to 1/2 that of gas depending on the equipment and regional gas prices.
While i am understanding this, a diagram of what is happening would be a tremendous supplement. Great video. I love seeing this stuff!
Thank you so much for that video. I didn't knew that you can heat your house with a heatpump system. Here in germany we rely mostly on gas and a little bit on oil and wood too. I don't think that there are much installed heatpumps in residential houses.
God bless all the internet experts in the youtube comments. We look forward to viewing your channels!
not an argument
Why would I bother, people aren't looking to learn anything on RUclips, just reinforce their existing world views. If I did make a video about heat pumps I doubt you'd be interested as I wouldn't approach the subject with a blatant agenda. *I do like heat pumps, we should use them more, however they're not always cost effective.
Fantastic information, gorgeous camera work!
Great video Robert and the Fully Charged Team. Amazing tech, I know it is not new tech, but still amazing.
Great episode, Robert!! Needs to be shown to the US Senate. Well, half of them anyway.
Didnt know there where large scale heatpumps. I converted a air/air to a air/water heatpump and it is nice to heat the house without making smoke. :) This was really a nice video.
In the Netherlands this is standard to do many companies make these and many homes use heatpomps in the Netherlands. Because we are moving away from gas burning new build homes only get a electrical connection gas is no longer used. So these houses have heat pumps . We build hotels with big heat pumps. But remember the more then 400% only goes up if the temperature difference is good. Air to water heatpomps only work if the outside air is above 7 degrees Celsius
What a funny (and nice) music in the beginning of the video!
Great video, excellent guest.
it would have been better if u added an animated vedio on how they do it
Back in the 80's I worked for Hydraulics Research near Wallingford in Oxfordshire, they had a pair of heat pumps in their new office building that housed the new computer suite.
The heat pumps extracted the heat from the computer suite and used that to heat the offices. The computer suite produced 10kw of unwanted heat that would be wasted with a conventional cooling system.
Heat pumps are the wisest way to warm and cool spaces but I still think that we could do so much more in the design of our structures. We build the stupidest houses when it comes to heating and cooling. New houses should have very thick sturdy walls and consequently be so well isulated that you simply never have to heat them. Residents would be kept warm with their own body heat, solar, or more substatially, the electronics they operate within. In my humble opinion, if you are using energy to directly heat your home, you need more insolation. :-)
As our electronics get more and more efficient there's less and less waste heat. Just think about the warmth desktop PCs, plasma tvs, incandescent light bulbs, etc used to put out!
So we need to go get more electronics and power strips for them so we use more electricity to keep warm, right? (usually what happens. :-) ) Of course it would be more prudent to further insolate our homes to compensate and try to have enclosed garages to charge our EVs in so we can benefit from the warmth that comes from charging. If I had the resources, I'd make my home out of space I could dig out of the side of a hill like a hobbit. That would be easy to heat and cool, so much better than living in a wind-blown stick structure out in the elements. ..but we are up against a catch 22. Banks will not write loans to build such structures making them rare and unorthodox, which is the very reason why they don't write those lones in the first place.
Check out Amory Lovins' work. Passive solar design coupled with these kinds of technologies can create living space that is fully self-sufficient.
To just heat your house with body heat most of your house would need to be occupied by insulation.
Well I should say that goes for areas with serious winters.
I checked out what I think is his official site and he seems much more interested in energy production methods than efficient architecture. (strong on solar and wind and generally negative on everything else) Still, it seems that any good efficient construction design is going to be snubbed by bank loan officers because they are unorthodox. And they are rare and unorthodox because no-one will loan money to build such structures. You need an egg to get a chicken or a chicken to get an egg and since you have neither, you can expect it to stay that way. :-(
That's bloody genius, wicked stuff. Can't wait until it's another thing that goes mainstream. Cool video.
Your office is probably heated, and cooled by a heat pump it's hardly ground breaking.
Edward Cooper:
In a lot of places in the US, the heating is done by burning fuel and the cooling by heat pump. The situation is partly caused by the fact that the landlord pays to put in the system and the tenant pays for the fuel.
Under earlier admins, there was an effort to change the heating systems to more efficient ones. This was more for national security than for saving the planet but the effect is the same. A nation where everything depends on a lot of fuel makes for an easy target for the bad guys.
Ken Smith
Some tall buildings in the USA have _slinkies_ (water pipes) embedded in the foundations concrete. They are used to extract ground heat.
You can already order to install this in your house for years. They will drill pipes into the ground. The only problem with existing houses is that you typically will have to switch to a lower temperature system (40-45°C), for example floor heating, to replace your central heating radiators which workes at much higher temperatures to create convection (70°C).
My neighbour has his heat pump for years now. Not air to air but more like ground to air.
It would have been nice to see how their system works.
M DeBough - it’s a “liquid heat pump”, go ogle it.
think its the exact reverse of air conditioning... you make the aircon cool the outside instead of the home, the hot part of a/c comes into the home..
Yes. My 'fridge and freezer do "heat" my kitchen. The heat they give off warms my house because its insulation holds it in. Same with all the light bulbs. Even CFLs give off some heat.. but that will be less as we progressively swap to LEDs. None of it is wasted heat if it is kept in the house.
effyleven It's wasted in the summer when the last thing you want is more heat inside. People made the same argument when 100 watt incandescent bulbs were phased out and it's still nonsense for all but 3 or 4 months of the year.
If you don't understand the subject or the numbers involved then I would recommend that you do a little research before making a comment that will make you look quite a bit foolish.
Heat pump systems work very well and the numbers quoted here are typical for a large system with water sourced heat.
Heads Tails The geothermal stuff works quite well at the residential level. At larger scale, though, you run the risk of exporting too much heat in the summer, which the winter cycle can’t catch up to, resulting in significantly elevated ground temperatures. The river approach works really well to solve that weakness.
The thing is that this is not traditional geothermal, it is a water sourced heat pump system.
Take a look how the systems work and then come back and comment or do you need someone to explain the difference to you?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_heat_pump
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump
The biggest risk of an under sized geothermal heat pump system is to cool the ground to much in a cold part of the world or heat it to much in a hot part of the world, that is why they use rivers and also design the size of the system to match the load.
An understanding of the subject is not needed to know "400% efficient" is wrong.
Essentially, the heat energy is already there and he just needs the equivalent 1/4 of that energy to move it elsewhere. That's not efficiency, however, as he is not generating heat with it. As used in the video, it's like saying it takes 1 watt to heat up a whole house just because that's how much power is used to open the furnace door.
JoeyRodz74 it’s not wrong to say it’s 400% efficient. Efficiency is the ratio of energy you put in to *useful* energy you get back out. It makes no difference that some of the useful energy comes from the surrounding environment rather than your input energy. After all, every type of "energy generation" is just moving energy from one form to another.
Vanishing Point have you used or implimented a system? Any hands on experience? No? Well? I have.
This sounds fantastic and a no brainer …… I hope that this finds a way into industrial/mass market supply.
I got off gas back in the 90s when I installed a geothermal heatpump. About two years ago I've gone 100% solar. That is for all energy usage at home, including 2 plug-in cars, on a net basis.
Heat pumps are how most houses in Scandinavia and France are heated nowadays. It is an obvious solution. Get an air to water heat pump and save 2/3 of your heating bill.
Unfortunately that's true. It doesn't make economic sense everywhere at the moment. But as electricity from renewables decreases the overal cost of electricity and as people are pushing on reduction of subsidies to oil/gas companies, these differences will continue to shrink rapidly and the economic benefit of the heat pumps will become more obvious. So I think companies like the Neat Pumps have a bright future ahead of them.
Air source heat pumps have a payback period of 5-7 years in the UK, currently. It absolutely makes sense to build every new home to passive house standards with air source heat pumps, a south facing roof with building integrated solar PV and an electric vehicle charging outlet. Lack of political will is the only problem in the UK.
David Beaumont I lived in a city and they did the same thing but unfortunately they were taking heat from the largest diesel electrical generator.....IN THE WORLD! It used so much heat and so they touted it as a green project. This was a really interesting video, I am almost getting optimistic for our future. It's about time since today I went for a bike ride in our Polar Vortex, it was -4° leaving and -5° when I got back. Meanwhile, over the North Pole today it is 1° and raining. And they haven't had the sun since September. We need to put a sense of urgency into our transition to renewables since we have to stop putting CO2 into the atmosphere.
Love your bookshelf! "Fun Science" is quite good! LOL Kidding... Always nice to watch your videos!
I think that one of the earliest attempts to use heat pumps on a relatively large scale was the original heating for the Royal Festival Hall in London. Although described in Wikipedia as a ground source heat pump, it used the water from the River Thames. I also used a pair of Merlin engines(!) to drive it. Sadly it was not a success and It was quickly replaced. It apparently made the Hall too hot.
You mentioned heat storage with large water tanks but you forgot the very interesting video that you posted earlier of another Scottish company, Sunamp, that uses phase change materials for heat storage. I can't wait to see a model, then house, then community using all sorts of technology to run all their energy needs on renewable energy. I'm sure it could happen now with the right vision and investment!
This was an amazingly great episode! This man is really interesting and I would have liked to hear much more from him. This concept of heating shoe towns with heat pumps, the scalability of it and the overall meshing of energy (heat/cold) usage with wind and solar would be a great episode to do.
As a Canadian who traveled to the England and Scotland, I loved his accent. One of the most beautiful English accents out there.
Thank you for making these episodes. I love learning about what is out there.
It would be great if you would do a mini-series on passive and net-zero (or net-positive) housing.
Thank you again.
Bravo, Star Renewable Energies.
// Exceptional. Please continue.
In my city and many other cities around Sweden we get our heating and electrisity from burning the city's waste. Sure not super green with burning waste but the heat generated goes to making elecrisity and then goes out to the homes to heat them and goes back to be heated again. Trying to make the most out of what it is, plus it is pretty cheap.
That is a very knowledgeable guy.
Best channel on the web, end of.
Way awesome! As always, thanks for making!
Even in moderate coastal California, this would be a massive energy savings for me. I want one!
Wow that's brilliant! What a great idea. Though Rob I'm surprised you don't have an Air Source Heat Pump, my parents installed one back in 2009 and it's still going strong.
Loving the accent!!!! and the cleverness of the guy also....
Right Glasgow let’s get a few of these in the Clyde heating the city centre offices, businesses, works, Hospitals 🤔👏👏👏 we already have the third biggest onshore wind farm on our doorstep.
Brilliant technology which should be exploited more. Thanks for the interesting video.
Wow great info about heat pumps...thanks. Mike back to front....but you already know that. Thanks for this great show.
So i saw in the paper some 30 years ago here in Australia they had some floating pontoons off the coast that would use the temperature gradient of the ocean to make electricity. So a gas at room temperature cool it a couple degrees with cold water from the bottom of the ocean to a liquid then as it turns back to a gas it turns a turbine producing power for basically free. What happen to them. In my research into them i found an article that stated they had one on a spanish ship back in the 1800's the only problem back then and 30 years ago was corrosion which is not a problem now with the new materials we have.
You’re still speaking in the wrong side of your microphone turn it 180°. Speak into the side with the brand logo
Anyways super high quality videos! 👏
That’s not necessarily true. The microphone looks like it has settings that changes the direction of audio capture
Daniel somethings off, you may be right but I have no idea.
You are right. It's a Samson C01U with a hyper-cardioid pattern. He is talking in to the back of the mic. It only has one polar pattern.
lol this is hilarious
Good talk.
First we have to start insulating our houses very well. Double glazing HR++ / Solar-collectors / Central Heating HR ++ / Warm-water HR ++ ....
BTW We have air-heating in our house ... a heat pump can be fitted in this system... This was originally made for cooling the air in summer, but I think it can be reversed.
Really excellent video. Would be great to do a follow up on one of their district heating units from a residential or commercial point of view...
I always was intrigued by the heat given off by flexing a piece of plastic and wondered if this could somehow be used to produce heat 'without any input'. Could tidal maybe run a system like this?! I'd love to try and prototype something to that end.
That's super cool. I didn't even know about these!
Great episode as usual.
I think you should make a program about inverter fridges. Every home has a fridge. So if all homes use these new fridges there will be at least 50% if not 70% saving on the electricity used for cooling food. How many fridges do you have in the UK? We have about 30 million in Egypt.
A small duct and pump can redirect the waste heat from behind fridge/freezer , for example, through a wall into a small room to help heat it. Even a low powered fan blowing air from near the ceiling to the floor level gives more 'warming' than the power used by the fan. Don't just 'make' heat, move it about.
That is so interesting. My house in Canada has a stream running under it in the basement, which would (it seems) be a good source for a heat pump.
Great video, excellent as always
Good show, look up "Pimlico District Heating" a 1950's project that stored waste heat from Battersea power station.
I love the car videos but it's still really nice to see some non-automotive videos
0:27 "How do we produce heat without burning anything?" I might be missing something blatantly obvious, but what's the problem with electrical radiators? We mainly use those to heat up our houses here in Norway, and it works just fine. I'm not criticizing heat pumps, but that line was poorly thought through I think.
One has to understand that home heating in the UK is via water filled radiators. The water is heated up by a natural gas boiler in the vast majority of homes. Prior to natural gas boilers, fireplaces burned wood or coal. Because home heat almost exclusively done via natural gas, then those in the UK may mistakenly think that burning things is the only way to heat a home.
My experience in the US with heat pumps, is that in very cold temperatures the heat pump struggles to keep the home warm. A heat pump system that cools by heat pump and heats using natural gas has no problem keeping the house warm during cold winters days/nights.
Air source heat pumps struggle in the cold because there is less heat to be extracted from the air. Ground source, including water, heat pumps are extracting heat from a source with a relatively stable temperature so the efficiency is consistent.
I believe the issue with air sourced heat pumps is that they can only add or subtract a limited amount of heat to the home.
So if its 15F outside and my thermostat is set to 70F it has to be able maintain an 55F difference between inside and out. In the summer if its 100F outside and set to 70F inside, the unit has a 30F differential to maintain. A better insulated home would help reduce the heat energy necessary to maintain a given heat differential or allow for a larger differential for the same heat energy input.
No, the heat difference is not the problem. Low temperature outside makes it harder to gather because 1) the compressor is designed to work in a given range, and lowering that range is hard, 2) less heat in the air means it needs to process more air, so bigger fans, larger radiators, etc. Mostly, though it is really about power, a heat pump is sized for a particular power capacity, a greater temperature difference increases the power loss of the building. Yes, better insulation helps on all these issues.
Those type of heaters produce 1kW of heat with 1kW of electricity. heat pumps can produce between 2.5 and 4kW of heat for each kW of electricity
Shouldn't the Samson logo point to the speaker (e. g. you) since the mic is directional? It sounds so indirect and with so much "room" in this recording.
Wonderful episode!
Great episode, but I just wish you would have explained the theory behind the idea a bit more. Nonetheless, great show and I'm so glad I've discovered this!
This is so incredibly exciting!
I love the slightly awkward B-roll footage of the guys in the factory.
This was a great story. Thanks.
Interesting video and good interview.
Very educational - Robert that was another incredible Fully charged episode!
Can you get some sound absorbing sponges in your microphone room? It’s quite ‘echoey’
Thank you for a nice video. Please look into District Heating in general. Not 0 emissions but gets rid of rubbish as well.
ohhh fine. that bloke had a proper accent! thoroughly enjoyed it :D
Very interesting, I wonder if you could cool (or assist cool) your fridges/freezers at the same time as (partially) heating your home? 6ish feet down the temperature is way warmer than a winter day here in Canada
Noel Dillabough
One college in the USA used a ground sources heat pump. It extracted heat in the winter and by the end of the winter the ground was like tundra. Then this cooled earth was used to extract _coolth,_ yes there is such a word, to cool the building. I am pretty sure they used air heating/cooling. It is best to have ground the sun shines on.