heat pumps

According to a Swedish-Austrian group of scientists, the combined use of heat pumps and rooftop PV generation may be boosted in Europe by replacing current subsidies with a carbon tax policy. Their analysis showed that the profitability of this combination is strictly dependent on gas prices, and that a slight increase in gas prices would be crucial to sustain strong development.

The Scottish government wants to deploy renewable-powered heat pumps on at least 1 million homes and 50,000 non-domestic buildings by the end of this decade. For this purpose, it has created an advisory group and is now seeking to gather all potential stakeholders.

According to a new study from LUT University, domestic water heating costs may be reduced by combining rooftop PV with geothermal heat pumps. Scientists developed a control method to minimize these costs by taking advantage of cheap spot market electricity and maximized PV power generation, as well as considering heat demand, PV generation forecasts, and heat pump efficiency.

Building renovations may result in up to 51% space heating demand savings, according to recent research from Germany. Its authors claim that, if buildings are retrofitted and thermal energy storage and individual hybrid heat pumps with back-up gas boilers are applied on a large scale, significant heat cost reduction may be achieved across the whole of Europe.

Energy efficiency, electrification of heating and transport, and the provision of clean cooking facilities are all going in the wrong direction as the Covid crisis deprived millions in sub-Saharan Africa of electricity use, according to a report by the IEA, IRENA, WHO, World Bank and UN Statistics Division.

The Polish government is supporting a hybrid renewable energy project based on a deep-borehole heat exchanger (DBHE) whose heat pumps are powered by photovoltaics. The heat generated by the facility will be used for district heating.

Household heat pumps, EV chargers and rooftop solar panels will be able to earn their owners benefits in return for helping to balance grid networks struggling to accommodate new solar and wind power generation.

The Dutch association of national-regional electricity and gas network operators, Netbeheer Nederland, is leading a plan to deploy up to 2 million hybrid heat pumps by 2030. The plan should be supported by a subsidy scheme by the government and enable the installation of at least 100,000 heat pumps per year from 2024.

The Institute for Solar Energy Research Hamelin (ISFH) is testing if renewables can cover 80% of electricity and heating demand combined in some town districts in southern Germany.

Danish gas transmission system operator Evida will exempt homeowners and individuals that want to abandon gas and choose renewable energy for heating from paying the grid disconnection fee. The scheme will be run on a first-come, first-served basis.