Bob and Tim were on their way to a service call at a store that has a frozen heat pump outdoor unit. It is late in the season and the customer called and said, “Our outdoor unit is frozen solid with ice.” After they arrived and talked to the owner, Bob said, “Let’s put the unit through a forced defrost.”
Ilios Dynamics Inc., a subsidiary of Tecogen® Inc., has announced its new Ilios™ HEWH-500-AS Split System air-source natural gas-driven heat pump water heater. According to the company, the unit cuts water heating costs in half, reduces a facility’s carbon footprint, and does so with near-zero criteria pollutant emissions.
Heat pump technology has drastically evolved over the past several years with higher heating efficiencies and strong performance at temperatures well below freezing. This growth is making these units more attractive in the Northern states, and the industry is pumping them up with new technologies and features.
Bob and Tim were on their way to a service call on a heat pump. The homeowners are complaining about noise at the outdoor unit. When Bob and Tim arrived, the homeowners explained that the heat pump for upstairs is beside the house in a wooded area. It is under their upstairs bedroom window and it became loud last night.
Haier, Astronautics Corporation of America, and BASF have introduced at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas a proof-of-concept wine cooler refrigerated by a magnetocaloric heat pump.
Frigesco has been awarded new UK Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) funding of £102,000 to develop a flash defrost system for use in air-source heat pumps (ASHPs). Flash defrost can reduce supermarket cooling energy costs by up to 20 percent. Field trials in working supermarkets are currently underway.
A report by the European Heat Pump Association (EHPA) has found that after three years of stagnation the European heat pump markets are recovering. It indicates that 771,245 heat pump units were sold in Europe in 2013, an increase of 3 percent, and early data for 2014 show this trend to continue.
Working with Mechanical Solutions Inc. (MSI), a small business in New Jersey, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Building Technologies Office has found a potential solution to allow for cold climate heat pumps: a “supercharger” that enables heat pumps to efficiently operate in the coldest U.S. climates, with zero backup heat.
The Robur RTAR is a modular, reversible cycle gas absorption heat pump system capable of producing hot water up to 140°F and chilled water down to 41°F.