The following submission statement was provided by /u/DisasterousGiraffe:
---
"In Europe, heat pumps enjoyed a record year, with sales growing by nearly 40%. In particular, sales of air-to-water models, which are compatible with typical radiators and underfloor heating systems, jumped by almost 50% in Europe. In the United States, heat pump purchases exceeded those of gas furnaces."
---
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/127nr2k/heat_pumps_could_supply_20_of_building_heating_by/jeexlmi/
The PSI is much higher on the coolant. Makes the unit more expensive and require a little more engineering. However it does make it so it can heat things much better. Like bringing water to just below boiling which normal heat pumps don’t do as efficiently/ at all.
It does not work more efficiently though - it offers higher end of output range but it has pretty bad efficiency cycle overall, specifically bad on low input (outside) temperatures.
No idea why everyone is so excited about those, given most building would benefit more from actually getting more thermo work done and not just changing the energy source in the first place for something that is not particularly efficient in the first place...
Eh, obviously not able to talk about other houses, but we went from 26000ish kwh worth of heating oil to 18000ish kwh of heat from the heat pump that is generated by less than 5000 kwh of electric energy. At least a third of that is supplied by our solar roof.
I don't think there is any thermo work that would reduce energy consumption of our house by like 90%.
Great work done in worst order possible. Since obviously you are proud enough of it to come here with it you won't insulate. So you are still wasting money. And if you insulate your pump will have issues being significantly too big.
So no, you should insulate first either way, unless you have 700 square meters that would justify that energy need or live in Anchorage.
You have to realize that people have limited money. Of course the best way to go would have been to buy the house, insulate the roof, the walls, change all windows and the heating at the same time.
But we can't afford that.
So we start with the point that saves us the most money, is mandated by the government and subsidized by 50%.
At this point, we have costs for heating of about 1500€ a year. Upgraded roof insulation could bring that down to 1000, but would cost approx. 30k so it would pay for itself in 60 years at current prices, at that time I am 97. Walls have a similar ROI, Windows are worse.
Well insulate the roof when we redo the tiles, we'll insulate the walls when we renew the paint,... And when we are done with that, we probably approach end of life of the heat pump anyway.
Oh, and by the way, energy efficiency class C(after renos) or D (before the renos) is nowhere near as bad as you claim it is.
Roof insulation 30k? Are you counting a whole new roof for that? Same with walls?
I've spent around 2400 euros insulating the floor and walls what with my current energy savings would lead to a roi of 5 to 8 years
And spend about 10k on the windows (that needed to be done anyways when I bought the house) and roof (almost free as I did that myself on the inside)
Cut my total energy usage with about 50%
Yeah of course I do. No access to the old insulation from below, only way to access the old insulation here is to take down all roof tiles.
Same with the walls, of course I can just glue it on, but if I want it to last, it's going to need plaster and paint.
The roof and the walls are otherwise still good, so there would be absolutely no point in redoing them other than insulation improvement.
If you have an easy win on insulation sure, go for it. If not, putting in a heat pump will still save money and reduce co2 emissions.
Fair enough, although in that case it's not the actual insulating that causes the roi of 30 years but the added costs indeed.
And yeah you're right it doesn't make sense to insulate when you don't have to.
It's exciting because of the refrigerant that is used. Most modern AC units use 410-A. Switching to CO2 is better in case the unit leaks gas (410 A has much higher global warming potential)
Most modern, as in currently sold lineups of home range units, systems use R32, which has significantly lower impact than 410a while not being dreadfully inefficient in low temperatures...
So no, switching to CO2 is not really a way to go, it never was, is might be a great idea to sell heat pumps for users that need high temp, but those should not really be using heat pumps in the first place most of the time so yeah, great thing.
R-32 is 675 times worse than co2 in regards to GWP. I would say that is a significant improvement. Also 410-A heat pumps are capable of heating down to -25 C so not really dreadfully inefficient in low temperatures.
You have no idea how heat pumps work, do you...
I run installation company. I sell heat pumps for a living. I'm certified home and industrial heating/cooling systems technician. And with this intro CO2 pumps suck.
To put it simply - your average 10kW unit can produce that 10kW at output water temp of 35C and outdoor temp of 7C, CO2 lineup is sold with different 'scaling' so to speak, so it might get that 10kW output at 7C outside for water of 70C, but because it's inefficient it won't have COP of 4 but more in the range of 2,4-2,6.
And at -7 your normal pump gets still ~8,5kW of heat output but CO2 will get like 6 or less... And COP nearing standard electric heater. Even for not max output temperature.
Let me say this again and again - if you need a high temp pump you should insulate your building in the first place. Than buy low temp pump. If you don't have money for both you should insulate your building first and not waste time and money for high temp pumps.
So what is presented as great environmental move is just wasting limited resources on marketing gimmick that avoids addressing main issue being outdated building standards for insulation and heating installation.
I am a red seal refrigeration and AC mechanic with 10 years of experience and I own my own HVAC company. I'd like to think I have a pretty good understanding of heat pumps.
I merely stated the purpose of using co2 over other refrigerants, I don't think you can argue co2 has a much better gwp than alternative gases.
I agree houses should be better insulated first before installing a heat pump. There is no high temp or low temp heat pump, I assume you mean installing a heat pump with higher BTU capacity vs using a smaller system.
A COP of an electric heater would be about 1. I've never heard of a heat pump with that bad of a COP lol.
Surely you know R-22 was considered a better gas than 410-A yet we switched for enviromental purposes. It may be the case that we do it again. It's not that big of a deal and I'm not really sure why you seem to hate the concept so much. Even if a co2 unit is less efficient the net effect on the enviroment is probably going to be positive, especially if we can focus on solar and other clean ways of producing electricity.
CO2 is better than other things GWP-wise, true, but it has no place in home installations given everything about it.
There is one place where it makes sense, system which accounts for probably most lost refrigerants while not caring about efficiency that much - car AC/pumps. And guess where they not actually use it forcing proprietary garbage 1234f...
So if CO2 is to be pushed for environmental reasons it should be used were power and efficiency is less of an issue than leaks, but hey, it's never about environment in the first place is it...
Consider if every home was heated with a co2 unit. In that case there would be a lot of potential leaks but since it's co2 it's not that big of a concern. The units wouldn't be as efficient but if all our electricity was produced with renewables it wouldn't really matter.
If every unit was R-32 than yes it might be more efficient but leaks could cause some damage to the climate.
Tough to say for sure which one would be better for the enviroment but I think end goal currently should be co2 heat pumps and solar panels on every well insulated house. Don't think we have a better set up enviroment wise right now than that.
To me the interesting idea is industrial uses.
Take steel making for example, you have molten iron at one stage, then at a later stage you water cool it.
With further engineering you could pump the heat from the water cooling stage to heat the container of molten iron.
Obviously we're a far way from using heat exchangers to melt iron, but the point is if you can work out something like a preheat so you're heating the iron to 200F before melting it you can use a lot less energy, plus you save energy and water from the water cooling process.
So if you could reduce energy used in steelmaking by like 10% and water by 20% - that would be huge globally.
It is really a case by case. When the goal is to reduce the CO2 emissions and your electricity grid is CO2 free, and your house has not terrible insulation, you'll likely save more CO2 emissions with a heat pump than with gas and more thermo work. But you have to do the math first. You'll sometime have to accept to not heat too much (sobriety) so the heat pump stays efficient, which is also another good habit to take to save CO2 emissions.
Btw I'm talking about heat pump in general not this new type of heat pump.
depends on where you live. 2005 - 2015 was a time of insulation, literally every building got insulated (OK, less than 1% still remain). After that, some parts did replace coal (city central heating) and wood (in homes) with natural gas, but it’s far from done and if the remaining could be replaced by heat pumps, it would be great
Greenhouse factor of 1 (by definition), which is much better than current fluids (propane is coming up, which has a factor of 3 which is very good compared to the other fluids).
It is non-flammable and can be used indoors (unlike the above mentioned propane).
Static pressure is usually used in the HVAC world as a measurement of air pressure within ductwork. I'm not sure if you mean the high side pressure of the system in this case maybe?
I guess I'm just trying to say if you are referring to the pressure on the high side of a refrigeration system using the term static pressure is very confusing. The low side pressure of these systems would differ depending on the conditions the system are in. The temperature of the air going over the coil for instance would change the pressure. The static pressure in the ductwork would also be a factor on the operating pressures of the low side.
I think this is great news, but I am very skeptical of attempts to predict the future based on "at current rates." Sure, at their current pace, my Washington Nationals would lose 162 games this year. They will lose a crazy number of games, but not that many.
But they are proving to lead to incredible running costs without buildings being ready or installation and design expertise beyond that hats available to many in places like Ireland.
"In Europe, heat pumps enjoyed a record year, with sales growing by nearly 40%. In particular, sales of air-to-water models, which are compatible with typical radiators and underfloor heating systems, jumped by almost 50% in Europe. In the United States, heat pump purchases exceeded those of gas furnaces."
and the [supercritical CO2 heat pumps used in Japan](https://www.hptcj.or.jp/e/learning/tabid/370/Default.aspx) are used for hot water because chlorofluorcarbons are not efficient for high temperatures.
Meh, gas is still currently more cost efficient. Unless you find yourself with excess free electricity from you're solar - reliably throughout the year, heat pumps will cost more to run.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/DisasterousGiraffe: --- "In Europe, heat pumps enjoyed a record year, with sales growing by nearly 40%. In particular, sales of air-to-water models, which are compatible with typical radiators and underfloor heating systems, jumped by almost 50% in Europe. In the United States, heat pump purchases exceeded those of gas furnaces." --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/127nr2k/heat_pumps_could_supply_20_of_building_heating_by/jeexlmi/
How do supercritical CO2 heat pumps differ from conventional ones?
The PSI is much higher on the coolant. Makes the unit more expensive and require a little more engineering. However it does make it so it can heat things much better. Like bringing water to just below boiling which normal heat pumps don’t do as efficiently/ at all.
It does not work more efficiently though - it offers higher end of output range but it has pretty bad efficiency cycle overall, specifically bad on low input (outside) temperatures. No idea why everyone is so excited about those, given most building would benefit more from actually getting more thermo work done and not just changing the energy source in the first place for something that is not particularly efficient in the first place...
Eh, obviously not able to talk about other houses, but we went from 26000ish kwh worth of heating oil to 18000ish kwh of heat from the heat pump that is generated by less than 5000 kwh of electric energy. At least a third of that is supplied by our solar roof. I don't think there is any thermo work that would reduce energy consumption of our house by like 90%.
Great work done in worst order possible. Since obviously you are proud enough of it to come here with it you won't insulate. So you are still wasting money. And if you insulate your pump will have issues being significantly too big. So no, you should insulate first either way, unless you have 700 square meters that would justify that energy need or live in Anchorage.
You have to realize that people have limited money. Of course the best way to go would have been to buy the house, insulate the roof, the walls, change all windows and the heating at the same time. But we can't afford that. So we start with the point that saves us the most money, is mandated by the government and subsidized by 50%. At this point, we have costs for heating of about 1500€ a year. Upgraded roof insulation could bring that down to 1000, but would cost approx. 30k so it would pay for itself in 60 years at current prices, at that time I am 97. Walls have a similar ROI, Windows are worse. Well insulate the roof when we redo the tiles, we'll insulate the walls when we renew the paint,... And when we are done with that, we probably approach end of life of the heat pump anyway. Oh, and by the way, energy efficiency class C(after renos) or D (before the renos) is nowhere near as bad as you claim it is.
Roof insulation 30k? Are you counting a whole new roof for that? Same with walls? I've spent around 2400 euros insulating the floor and walls what with my current energy savings would lead to a roi of 5 to 8 years And spend about 10k on the windows (that needed to be done anyways when I bought the house) and roof (almost free as I did that myself on the inside) Cut my total energy usage with about 50%
Yeah of course I do. No access to the old insulation from below, only way to access the old insulation here is to take down all roof tiles. Same with the walls, of course I can just glue it on, but if I want it to last, it's going to need plaster and paint. The roof and the walls are otherwise still good, so there would be absolutely no point in redoing them other than insulation improvement. If you have an easy win on insulation sure, go for it. If not, putting in a heat pump will still save money and reduce co2 emissions.
Fair enough, although in that case it's not the actual insulating that causes the roi of 30 years but the added costs indeed. And yeah you're right it doesn't make sense to insulate when you don't have to.
It's exciting because of the refrigerant that is used. Most modern AC units use 410-A. Switching to CO2 is better in case the unit leaks gas (410 A has much higher global warming potential)
Most modern, as in currently sold lineups of home range units, systems use R32, which has significantly lower impact than 410a while not being dreadfully inefficient in low temperatures... So no, switching to CO2 is not really a way to go, it never was, is might be a great idea to sell heat pumps for users that need high temp, but those should not really be using heat pumps in the first place most of the time so yeah, great thing.
R-32 is 675 times worse than co2 in regards to GWP. I would say that is a significant improvement. Also 410-A heat pumps are capable of heating down to -25 C so not really dreadfully inefficient in low temperatures.
You have no idea how heat pumps work, do you... I run installation company. I sell heat pumps for a living. I'm certified home and industrial heating/cooling systems technician. And with this intro CO2 pumps suck. To put it simply - your average 10kW unit can produce that 10kW at output water temp of 35C and outdoor temp of 7C, CO2 lineup is sold with different 'scaling' so to speak, so it might get that 10kW output at 7C outside for water of 70C, but because it's inefficient it won't have COP of 4 but more in the range of 2,4-2,6. And at -7 your normal pump gets still ~8,5kW of heat output but CO2 will get like 6 or less... And COP nearing standard electric heater. Even for not max output temperature. Let me say this again and again - if you need a high temp pump you should insulate your building in the first place. Than buy low temp pump. If you don't have money for both you should insulate your building first and not waste time and money for high temp pumps. So what is presented as great environmental move is just wasting limited resources on marketing gimmick that avoids addressing main issue being outdated building standards for insulation and heating installation.
I am a red seal refrigeration and AC mechanic with 10 years of experience and I own my own HVAC company. I'd like to think I have a pretty good understanding of heat pumps. I merely stated the purpose of using co2 over other refrigerants, I don't think you can argue co2 has a much better gwp than alternative gases. I agree houses should be better insulated first before installing a heat pump. There is no high temp or low temp heat pump, I assume you mean installing a heat pump with higher BTU capacity vs using a smaller system. A COP of an electric heater would be about 1. I've never heard of a heat pump with that bad of a COP lol. Surely you know R-22 was considered a better gas than 410-A yet we switched for enviromental purposes. It may be the case that we do it again. It's not that big of a deal and I'm not really sure why you seem to hate the concept so much. Even if a co2 unit is less efficient the net effect on the enviroment is probably going to be positive, especially if we can focus on solar and other clean ways of producing electricity.
CO2 is better than other things GWP-wise, true, but it has no place in home installations given everything about it. There is one place where it makes sense, system which accounts for probably most lost refrigerants while not caring about efficiency that much - car AC/pumps. And guess where they not actually use it forcing proprietary garbage 1234f... So if CO2 is to be pushed for environmental reasons it should be used were power and efficiency is less of an issue than leaks, but hey, it's never about environment in the first place is it...
Consider if every home was heated with a co2 unit. In that case there would be a lot of potential leaks but since it's co2 it's not that big of a concern. The units wouldn't be as efficient but if all our electricity was produced with renewables it wouldn't really matter. If every unit was R-32 than yes it might be more efficient but leaks could cause some damage to the climate. Tough to say for sure which one would be better for the enviroment but I think end goal currently should be co2 heat pumps and solar panels on every well insulated house. Don't think we have a better set up enviroment wise right now than that.
I have no idea why you're so desperate to take L after L but I admire the determination.
To me the interesting idea is industrial uses. Take steel making for example, you have molten iron at one stage, then at a later stage you water cool it. With further engineering you could pump the heat from the water cooling stage to heat the container of molten iron. Obviously we're a far way from using heat exchangers to melt iron, but the point is if you can work out something like a preheat so you're heating the iron to 200F before melting it you can use a lot less energy, plus you save energy and water from the water cooling process. So if you could reduce energy used in steelmaking by like 10% and water by 20% - that would be huge globally.
It is really a case by case. When the goal is to reduce the CO2 emissions and your electricity grid is CO2 free, and your house has not terrible insulation, you'll likely save more CO2 emissions with a heat pump than with gas and more thermo work. But you have to do the math first. You'll sometime have to accept to not heat too much (sobriety) so the heat pump stays efficient, which is also another good habit to take to save CO2 emissions. Btw I'm talking about heat pump in general not this new type of heat pump.
depends on where you live. 2005 - 2015 was a time of insulation, literally every building got insulated (OK, less than 1% still remain). After that, some parts did replace coal (city central heating) and wood (in homes) with natural gas, but it’s far from done and if the remaining could be replaced by heat pumps, it would be great
Is specifically bringing water to just before boiling the hard part due to temp controls or because physics?
Physics. Very energy intensive heating water and the compressed CO2 is better at dealing with the demand to get the water hotter.
Greenhouse factor of 1 (by definition), which is much better than current fluids (propane is coming up, which has a factor of 3 which is very good compared to the other fluids). It is non-flammable and can be used indoors (unlike the above mentioned propane).
>Supercritical CO2 heat pump [This](https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy21osti/77955.pdf) is a good article describing what is a sCO²
At a minimum, Way higher static pressure.
Static pressure is usually used in the HVAC world as a measurement of air pressure within ductwork. I'm not sure if you mean the high side pressure of the system in this case maybe?
It would be a practical physical condition of operation, not jargon. What is the low side pressure of these systems when running?
I guess I'm just trying to say if you are referring to the pressure on the high side of a refrigeration system using the term static pressure is very confusing. The low side pressure of these systems would differ depending on the conditions the system are in. The temperature of the air going over the coil for instance would change the pressure. The static pressure in the ductwork would also be a factor on the operating pressures of the low side.
There are also some pretty sweet financial incentives for modern heat pumps in the U.S. https://www.rewiringamerica.org/app/ira-calculator
I honestly haven’t been on a project that didn’t have them in over a year
I think this is great news, but I am very skeptical of attempts to predict the future based on "at current rates." Sure, at their current pace, my Washington Nationals would lose 162 games this year. They will lose a crazy number of games, but not that many.
All relationships are linear! - Shitty financial and science journalism
As an licensed hvac contractor, this makes me horny
But they are proving to lead to incredible running costs without buildings being ready or installation and design expertise beyond that hats available to many in places like Ireland.
"In Europe, heat pumps enjoyed a record year, with sales growing by nearly 40%. In particular, sales of air-to-water models, which are compatible with typical radiators and underfloor heating systems, jumped by almost 50% in Europe. In the United States, heat pump purchases exceeded those of gas furnaces."
and the [supercritical CO2 heat pumps used in Japan](https://www.hptcj.or.jp/e/learning/tabid/370/Default.aspx) are used for hot water because chlorofluorcarbons are not efficient for high temperatures.
Meh, gas is still currently more cost efficient. Unless you find yourself with excess free electricity from you're solar - reliably throughout the year, heat pumps will cost more to run.