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The biggest heat pumps

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Re: The biggest heat pumps

#101

Post by triceratops »

looofooo0 wrote: post #42

Germany at its best, instead of keeping its 20GW+ nuclear power running and get district heating pipes installed to them, they engineer this solution at x times the cost. In this case a 30km pipe from Philippsburg NPP would have done the trick.

It's the year 2135. Discussions about energy anywhere in Europe begin with the customary lament for Germany's shortsighted decision to cease nuclear energy production sometime in the 20th century. Nobody knows where this tradition originates from but it is rigorously upheld.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#102

Post by jabl »

renhanxue wrote: post #97

Those are some big heatpumps, but in terms of installed capacity at a single location they have yet to beat the Stockholm municipal heating utility's installation at Hammarbyverket, which since its most recent expansion in 2013 has a total of 7 heat pumps capable of extracting up to 225 MW of heat energy from treated sewage. The utility claims it is (still) the world's largest heat pump installation. Notably it actua…

Interesting. In Helsinki the municipal energy company has a plant with 7 heat pumps which is slightly smaller at 160 MW heat and 100 MW of cooling. https://www.helen.fi/en/news/2023/Waste-heat-plays-a-signifi...

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#103

Post by renhanxue »

jabl wrote: post #102
renhanxue wrote: post #97

Those are some big heatpumps, but in terms of installed capacity at a single location they have yet to beat the Stockholm municipal heating utility's installation at Hammarbyverket, which since its most recent expansion in 2013 has a total of 7 heat pumps capable of extracting up to 225 MW of heat energy from treated sewage. The utility claims it is (still) the world's largest heat pump installation. Notably it actua…

Interesting. In Helsinki the municipal energy company has a plant with 7 heat pumps which is slightly smaller at 160 MW heat and 100 MW of cooling. https://www.helen.fi/en/news/2023/Waste-heat-plays-a-signifi...

Looks like the expansion to 300 MW will have Stockholm beat soon if it hasn't already happened! Or is that in a different plant? Wasn't entirely clear to me, but great progress nonetheless!

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#104

Post by oceanplexian »

sowbug wrote: post #80
MisterTea wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is install, but even that is not really that significant. The install itself isn't that hard they come pre-charged with refrigerant. I have installed a few of the air-to air myself and had no issues. All you need is a vacuum pump and proper refrigerant manifold or adapters. Vacuum out the lines for at least an hour to draw out all the air and moisture, close valve and let sit for an hour, if the gauge shows n…

There is now an even easier way than vacuuming. Instead of pulling the unwanted air and moisture from the lines, you can push it out with another gas, which itself can somehow coexist with the refrigerant. I haven't tried it because I already have the pump and gauges, but if I were installing my first mini split, I'd consider it. Example: https://www.highseer.com/products/pioneer-kwik-e-vac

It's so ridiculously easy to vacuum and charge a heat pump it's kind of unnecessary.

I think I spent $200 in parts on Amazon and have done 4 heat pumps now. It's a vacuum pump, a scale, and a digital manifold/guage. Punch the numbers for subcool/superheat into a calculator and use the temp probes on the lines where they connect to the condenser and you can even skip the scale.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#105

Post by rsynnott »

I am unsurprised that the big heat pumps are in Germany, because Germany as a country seems to be really into heat. As far as I can see, what is considered normal room temperature is about five degrees higher there than anywhere else.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#106

Post by rsynnott »

hexbin010 wrote: post #52
supersparrow wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A boiler should actually be lasting more like 20 years. I recently replaced my 20 year old one purely because if anything went wrong, it’d become an expensive/long job to fix as parts were hard to find, otherwise it was still running perfectly at its manufacture specified efficiency. Running them for 20 years isn’t uncommon. I had a quote for a heat pump - £20k, plus the cost to replace 13 radiators, plus cost to rep…

Was your old boiler a non-combi? Modern condensing combis I think are designed to be more complex and not last as long. I'm not sure all the complexity and fancy modulation etc is really worth it myself. I'd rather have a boiler that lasts 20 years and that any half-competent gas engineer can fix with a spanner and some spare parts. £20k, jesus!

Whatever about a combi, you probably don't want a non-condensing boiler these days, not with gas the price that it is.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#107

Post by jabl »

jack_tripper wrote: post #24
willvarfar wrote: post #14

In the nordics we love heat-pumps! Something like 70% of houses are heated by heat-pumps, and 90% of apartment buildings are heated by district heating and that is often generated by huge heatpumps. Apparently 95% of new heating installations in Swedish houses are heat-pumps these days: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC1... Heatpumps have been heating nordic homes for decades. Even in the co…

Sign of a rich and very developed country. A lot of buildings in Austrian cities are still heated by burning oil or wood and the whole city smells like a bonfire. Probably gonna have my lifespan shortened by at least a decade from all that fossil fuel pollution, but at least we banned that dirty nuclear from killing us.

> Sign of a rich and very developed country.

You need to find another reason. Looking at IMF 2025 GDP per capita figures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... ):

Norway: $92k

Denmark: $77k

Sweden: $62k

Germany: $60k

UK: $57k

Finland: $56k

So yeah, Denmark and particularly Norway are a bit richer than the others, but the others are in the same ballpark.

If I had to bring up some particular reason, gas grids are more or less non-existent in the Nordics, and electricity is cheaper than in central Europe or UK.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#108

Post by oceanplexian »

consp wrote: post #22
kijin wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Practically, the water would need to be somewhat warmer than 0℃ because you don't want it to freeze and clog the plumbing after you have extracted a useful amount of thermal energy. :)

Depending on the contaminants, it's more likely a few degrees below 0C but you point still stands. Fish are removed as contaminant but minerals and pollution likely is not. And normal water takes quite a bit of heat extraction to actually freeze if at 0C, maybe the device does not even extract enough. But you want to be on the safe side of course since clogging up your heat exchanger with ice (which expands) is not g…

> Fish are removed as contaminant

Why do I have a feeling this is one of those "green" ideas that has some horrible environmental consequence. One that could have been solved with a way simpler technology for far less money in exchange for a bit of efficiency loss.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#109

Post by rsynnott »

pjc50 wrote: post #59
mrmlz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK houses are really interesting.. Single-glass windows, poor insulation etc. And plumbing on the OUTSIDE(!) :) Are the boilers typically connected to water-radiators?.. I assume so based on the word "boiler". There are heatpumps that are used to heat water so it would be a slot in replacement..

Not many people left with single glazing unless they've been trapped by historic building rules. "Outdoor plumbing" is not a thing. The pump is a drop in replacement unless you have 8mm "microbore" piping, at which point the lower temperature times restricted flow rate becomes a problem in terms of getting enough heat through.

By 'outdoor plumbing' they probably mean pipes running up the outside of buildings (not, like, outhouses). This is somewhat common for waste pipes.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#110

Post by renhanxue »

pjc50 wrote: post #53
willvarfar wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A heatpump needs power to operate, but will generate at least 3x more heat than the electricity to power it. The article describes how there will be a water battery. So it can be thought of as a part of a bigger countrywide or europe-wide plan and grid?

Sure, but if you build a nuclear reactor suitably close to your city (!) it produces hot water directly in addition to electricity. It's just a much bigger pain to ship hot water over long distances than electricity.

Sweden's first commercial nuclear plant[0] was built right next to a newly constructed suburb precisely so that it could be used for district heating too. And also for producing small quantities of weapons grade plutonium, for... research purposes. Waste not, want not!

(It didn't last very long and was shut down in the mid 1970's, for somewhat obvious reasons.)

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%85gesta_Nuclear_Plant

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