Heat Pumps

In May 2022, PV experts from around the world convened in Germany for the third Terawatt Workshop. Almost one year later, takeaways from discussions at the workshop – combined with a wide-ranging review of research on decarbonization pathways, energy demand projections, and the state of the art in PV technology – led to the conclusion that 75 TW of installed solar capacity by 2050 was a realistic global target. More than 50 leading PV industry figures recently outlined the opportunity and the challenges that solar will face in reaching this goal.

The European solar landscape changed forever in 2022 and managing the supply chain, grid, and permitting constraints will be key to a solar-dominated energy future for the continent.

Kensol said its new air-to-water heat pump uses a Panasonic Inverter DC twin rotary compressor and is able to achieve a maximum water temperature of 60 C.

A British research group has investigated the economic feasibility of solar-powered heat pumps in China and has found that the country’s northern regions offer the lowest payback time of less than three years. As for the country’s southern regions, however, the adoption of PV-linked heat pumps was found to be “uneconomical.”

Researchers at Germany’s Fraunhofer ISE have developed an optimized heat pump propane refrigeration circuit for single-family homes.

Vargas, Northvolt’s parent company, has launched Aira, a new business venture that will sell heat pumps on a monthly fee basis. The venture is in the pilot phase in Italy and will expand to Germany and the United Kingdom later this year. It plans to start production in 2024 at a factory in Wroclaw, Poland.

Maxeon and Samsung have developed a cloud-to-cloud system to transmit data from Maxeon’s PV panels and batteries to Samsung’s home platform. The heat pump integration enables the use of surplus PV energy to preheat rooms at specific times.

SolarEdge is partnering with Vaillant and Samsung to integrate their heat pumps into its home ecosystem. Homeowners will be able to optimize their energy consumption by using excess PV or shifting consumption in accordance with optimal energy rates.

pv magazine is on the ground bringing you the latest developments from this year’s three-day European solar shindig in Munich.

Japan’s Panasonic has developed an air-source heat pump that uses propane (R290) as the refrigerant. It can produce between 5 kW and 9 kW of heat, as well as domestic hot water up to a temperature of 75 C. It says the heat pump can be paired with rooftop solar to maximize self-consumption. The new Aquarea series also includes a heat pump with R32 as the refrigerant.