Heat Pumps

HOW DOES A HEAT PUMP WORK?

Heat pumps are effective solutions to heating and cooling applications for all types of buildings, Swimming Pools , domestic, commercial and retail premises including hotels and residential complexes.

This well-proven technology has been in use for decades and Heat Pumps are at work all over the world providing safe, reliable heating and cooling at affordable prices.

Reserves of conventional fossil fuels are finite and emissions of Carbon Dioxide and other greenhouse gases add increasingly to the effects of climate change. As a low carbon technology, heat pumps can significantly reduce the UK’s Carbon Dioxide emissions.

Where Heat Pumps are used for heating, they are capable of highly cost-efficient energy applications because they tap into a limitless supply of clean, pollution-free heat – either the surrounding air or heat captured in the ground – all you pay for is the energy to transport that heat, and in some applications, most of this energy can be reclaimed, too.

The Basic Principle

As with many technologies that we use in every-day life, the basic principles of how a heat pump works are simple.

All our surroundings, even a block of ice, has heat. The purpose of a heat pump is to absorb heat in one place where it is plentiful, then to transport and release it in another location where it can be used for space or water heating.

Useful heat can be found in the air outdoors, in the ground, and is present in water, rivers, lakes and the sea. Even on the coldest winter days, sufficient heat is present to warm our homes and offices – what’s more, it is free. All we have to pay for is the machine to recover it and the cost of the energy to run the machine.

Even then the savings continue. Modern heat pumps allow a significant quantity of the electrical energy that drives the heat pump to be returned to the building as useful heat.

How Does a Heat Pump Work?

At the heart of a modern heat pump is a refrigeration system. Paradoxically, the refrigeration cycle is an efficient provider of heat as well as cooling and the basics of its operation are quite easily understood.

There are two principle locations in the transfer of heat; the place where heat is absorbed, (the source), and where it is rejected, (the destination). The compressor in the refrigeration system also produces waste heat, and a significant proportion of this can be recovered, thereby reducing running costs and the ultimate release of CO2.