 Heat pump 2
Many heat pumps have been sold in Germany recently. But government subsidies would also have applied to other options that would have covered 65 percent of the demand in a climate-
neutral manner.
What exactly is the advantage of a heat pump? We're constantly told that it's this famous factor: the heat pump's ability to produce, say, three times as much heat from one kWh of electricity.
Now let's assume that this figure actually applies to heating on an annual average. By the way, please don't pin us down with these figures. We're already hearing heat pump operators
protesting against this figure.
They claim they achieved more and can even prove it empirically. If we address this, the discussion immediately becomes bogged down, and it becomes all about how the numbers were
generated and what might have been left out.
Let's stick to the principle and try to make sure everyone can understand us. We're wrestling with ourselves about whether to invest in a heat pump, an air conditioner, or a direct heating
system. And we can't handle the topic conclusively in terms of numbers anyway.
Where is a large part of the heat pump located? Let's assume it's outside, a short distance from the house. Now there are two possibilities: for example, the refrigerant enters the house and
transfers its heat to the water in the heating circuit.
Or this water is piped to the outside part of the house and comes back heated. However, this requires protecting all the water for the heating system from freezing. This is already the first
additional effort and costs.
By the way, there are also situations in which the heat pump needs to be protected against icing. Yes, in that case, electrical heat must be generated somewhere to defrost it. Additionally, the
energy required to pump the refrigerant and heating water must be considered.
But that's not all. Compared to an air conditioner, which directly heats the air in a room, a heat pump has to do this with the piping, radiators, and possibly even the flooring – all losses that
neither an air conditioner with an external connection nor a direct heating system has.
And then there's another hidden energy guzzler in the form of an electric heater in the boiler, which ensures the necessary shower water temperature above 60°C to prevent salmonella. This
would significantly exceed the heat pump's favorable range.
It would be worth to calculate once how much energy it costs to keep a large amount of water warm all the time, including the convenience of having hot water as soon as you open the tap. It
circulates and circulates, and so on.
Instead, one could install instantaneous water heaters with adjusted temperatures in every location in the house where hot water is needed. Combined with more economical elucidation and
not always using hot water, this could perhaps be more economical.
In general, a hydraulic system can be designed to adapt to the use of the rooms, but it remains a slow system. In any case, we don't believe that the above-predicted threefold improvement
compared to air conditioning or direct heating will actually materialize in practice.
| And then there are the investments . . . |
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