ALL THINGS GREEN
Heat pumps, insulation and unintended consequences
Air conditioning is gaining ground in the UK as buildings are constructed to increasingly efficient regulations. Roberto Mallozzi, managing director at Gree explains what that means for the future.
A
report by the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), which hit the headlines recently, set out a raft of measures to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. One of the ways it wants to achieve this is through reductions in emissions due to the heating of our homes and workplaces. To this end it is recommending, at long last, the greater use of heat pumps and more efficient insulation; spot on with the first point, but the insulation point needs closer examination. Ironically, while most people still think of air conditioning in terms of cooling, its real environmental benefit has been as a form of heating. The figures are well known to those of us involved with the sector, but less so outside that group. Heat pumps are intrinsically efficient; for every kilowatt of electricity that goes in, 3kW of heating comes out. As we know, development has reached the point where heat pumps not only heat the air in a building, but they can now, of course, also
36 July 2019
supply hot water, both for domestic hot water and underfloor heating.
In addition to this, the equipment itself continues to become more and more efficient,
which means even greater reductions in CO2 emissions.
However, one of its greatest advantages is something that used to be a major drawback: its power source is electricity. At the end of the last century, electric central heating was largely inefficient and unsophisticated, delivered through electric fires and night storage heaters, and electricity itself was largely generated by fossil fuels. Now, heat pumps are at the cutting edge of carbon emission reduction and UK electricity that’s produced by renewable sources. In 2011, electricity produced from renewable sources was just 8.8%, but just six years later this had risen to 28%. The estimate for 2018 is that it has reached a third of our total power requirements.
For larger buildings, three-pipe VRF can be used, which transfers free heat from areas where it is generated, such as the sunny side of the building, to areas where it is needed, such as the north side of the building or basement levels. This also has the benefit of free cooling for the hot areas.
This all combines to make heat pumps the greenest form of heating possible at the moment, well ahead of gas and other fossil fuels. While biomass may have a comparable claim when used on a small scale at the source, when it is grown on an industrial scale and transported over long distances, CO2
levels escalate.
Even geothermal energy is not actually emission free when you add in the high carbon cost of the construction process, not to mention the actual capital cost. It also requires a large amount of ground and maintenance is extremely difficult.
www.acr-news.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56
