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Low noise is key to success of heat pumps
If heat pumps are to continue to grow in popularity, one important criterion for evaluating them will become even more important in the future: noise emissions. That’s according to Enrico Fraccari, Copeland’s director marketing residential comfort for Europe
H
eat pumps are an important building block in driving decarbonisation and ensuring a sustainable, efficient heat supply for private
households as well as commercial buildings in Europe. In addition to the Nordic countries, which traditionally cover much of their heating requirements with heat pumps, heat pumps are also gaining ground in populous EU countries such as Germany.
Urbanisation calls for better noise protection in heat pumps
Noise is already one of the environmental burdens that people feel most affected by. As a psychosocial stress factor, noise not only affects subjective well-being and quality of life, but also health in the narrower sense. The growth of urban living spaces and the resulting increase in population density make it necessary to further reduce emissions from traffic-related noise sources as well as industrial, commercial and recreational noise. In perspective, the growing need for noise protection is leading to correspondingly stricter regulation, which also affects heat pumps. Sound and noise problems are becoming increasingly important for consumers and the EU as well as national authorities, the EHPA white paper “Heat Pumps & Sound” notes. According to the paper, more and more municipalities and member states are introducing and enforcing maximum outdoor sound pressure levels at the installation site. In principle, EU Regulations 813/2013 and 814/2013 on the Ecodesign Directive already define the minimum requirements for noise emissions from air source heat pumps. However, the specific legal formulation differs from country to country within Europe. With it, the maximum values for the permissible sound pressure level also vary. While in Austria, for example, a maximum of 30 db(A) is permitted during nighttime operation of a heat pump (measured at the property boundary), in the United Kingdom it may be up to 42 db(A), measured in front of the neighbor’s window – in human perception,
Above: Enrico Fraccari, director of marketing residential comfort for Europe at Copeland
this difference corresponds to more than double the sound pressure. In almost all countries, maximum values apply to
the entire national territory, which is usually divided into different areas such as residential areas, industrial areas, etc., depending on the intended use, states the International Energy Agency (IEA). 24-hour days are also usually divided into two to three reference periods with different maximum values. However, the permissible sound power levels and framework conditions in individual EU countries sometimes even vary between their federal states, including Germany.
Low-noise operation must already be taken into account in product design
This brief overview already shows how complex the requirements for the noise emissions of a heat pump are. For equipment manufacturers, this has two consequences: On the one hand, they must understand low operating noise of their heat pumps as an important differentiating feature in competition and, at the same time, as a safeguard to be able to comply with the extremely heterogeneous regulation in the European markets. On the other hand, operating noise must already be a decisive criterion within the product design process. By addressing these points in the design of heat pumps, equipment manufacturers not only make additional sound insulation dispensable, they
also ensure compliance with the legal framework conditions and maximum acceptance on the part of end customers.
The Copeland approach takes these
requirements into account: Based on a specially developed complete package of scroll compressors and control and safety electronics, manufacturers can develop heat pumps that are as low-noise as they are efficient. At the core of this package are the variable-speed YHV low sound scroll compressors, which produce a dramatically reduced sound pressure 10 db(A) or even more below any compressor. They are complemented by the CE certified and EMC compliant (EN 55014-1) EV3 drive, which has best-in-class efficiency under all operating conditions and is perfectly matched to Copeland YHV scroll compressors. Complementing this, the advanced superheat envelope controller (SEC) ensures reliable operation within predefined safety margins. It continuously monitors the controls and actuators to ensure efficient and safe operation of the scroll compressors and components. The components enable manufacturers to develop particularly low-noise heat pumps, and working together, they achieve important synergy effects difficult to achieve by combining components from different suppliers. In view of increasingly stringent noise
regulations in European markets in the future and growing awareness among consumers, manufacturers must therefore prioritise accordingly: The quietest possible operation of a heat pump is not just one product feature among many, but ultimately the critical factor for success.
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