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The biggest heat pumps

bbc.com

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Re: The biggest heat pumps

#61

Post by jack_tripper »

stephen_g wrote: post #60
jack_tripper wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Longer term this shouldn’t be the case though - a fridge is just a heat pump, and an air-to-air or air-to-water heat pumps aren’t that much more complicated, nor should they be any less reliable. It’s something that will become more of a commodity and eventually won’t be any more sign of wealth than owning a fridge. I mean, we can see it already in air-to-air systems - I’ve had mini-splits supplied and installed here…

>Longer term this shouldn’t be the case though

Long term I'll be dead anyway. To me the the actions taken in the present is most important that what maybe might happen 30 years from now since that's why everything is fucked in Europe, because everyone coasts on hopium for the long term instead of fixing the present.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#62

Post by hexbin010 »

pjc50 wrote: post #57
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…

I managed £15k minus £7k of Scottish government incentives, and I managed to avoid replacing all my radiators by .. getting a "hybrid" system which also includes a boiler for HW :/ Far from ideal solution, but it is mostly green, somewhat offset by the solar panels, and actually more comfortable than the old system because of the more even heating. Set to 20C and forget about it for the season. I'm hoping that it wil…

£15k included the solar?

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#63

Post by pjc50 »

hexbin010 wrote: post #62
pjc50 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I managed £15k minus £7k of Scottish government incentives, and I managed to avoid replacing all my radiators by .. getting a "hybrid" system which also includes a boiler for HW :/ Far from ideal solution, but it is mostly green, somewhat offset by the solar panels, and actually more comfortable than the old system because of the more even heating. Set to 20C and forget about it for the season. I'm hoping that it wil…

£15k included the solar?

Sadly no, that was a £5k => 3.8kW installation ten years previously. That has long since paid for itself in feed in tariffs.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#64

Post by looofooo0 »

willvarfar wrote: post #56
looofooo0 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well in the south you might need to factor the gas cost in (vs Germany) and also the network effects of heat pump being the main form of heating in sweden.

The south of Sweden is expensive because Sweden did away with the previous single energy market and split into zones with sales abroad. Often Swedish producers sell to Germany at the same time Swedish consumers are forced to buy from German producers. It was a big thing about 'free market' and iirc Denmark was upset that Danish manufacturing could not compete with the price of energy across the straights in Sweden. T…

I was solely talking about heat pump adoption due end user prices.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#65

Post by looofooo0 »

masklinn wrote: post #26
cyberax wrote: post #17

So $235 million for 162MW, or $2.35B for 1.6GW A 1.6GWe nuclear reactor is around $8B.

These are… completely unrelated ratings? The heat pump generates 162MWt, at the cost of around 50MWe. The nuclear reactor produces 1.6GWe alongside 4.5GWt. Furthermore the listed costs are also unrelated: the 235 millions are for the bare units (and an estimate for something a few years out), while the 8bn are turnkey (of what exactly I’m not sure: the beleaguered Olkiluoto 3 and flamanville 3 cost 11~12bn, while Tai…

1.6GWe gives you 3.2GWt max alongside. In more modern this is even less. Of the 100% energy produced 33-38% will end up in the electric grid.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#66

Post by looofooo0 »

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.

It was Philippsburg was 30km to Mannheim, Could have send 3GW of thermal energy over.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#67

Post by willvarfar »

looofooo0 wrote: post #64
willvarfar wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The south of Sweden is expensive because Sweden did away with the previous single energy market and split into zones with sales abroad. Often Swedish producers sell to Germany at the same time Swedish consumers are forced to buy from German producers. It was a big thing about 'free market' and iirc Denmark was upset that Danish manufacturing could not compete with the price of energy across the straights in Sweden. T…

I was solely talking about heat pump adoption due end user prices.

I know I paid about 1000EUR for an air-air heat-pump with install in Sweden, but that was a decade ago and they cost 1500-2000EUR total these days. I also have a fancy big ground-source heat-pump bigger than most residential ones and that cost under 10000EUR total. So not sure what makes them so expensive in other countries; you'd hope competition kept prices competitive.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#68

Post by lnsru »

stefanfisk wrote: post #44
lnsru wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing amusing. Germany is not really rich compared to nordics. And now let‘s do so math! Electricity: 0,3€/kWh and gas 0,1€/kWh. I need ~3x more gas to get same temperature in my room. And gas heating costs €10k while heat pump €40k without subsidies and probably raw €15k material cost if I install it by myself. So why should I pay more by €30k to install experimental thing for a decade when my low cost gas heating…

What is the calculus behind 40k? I just checked some Swedish vendors and here they calculate 12k for hardware and installation of a fairly large heat pump. https://www.polarpumpen.se/kunskapsbanken/varmepump-kunskaps...

State subsidies and insane overregulation. Think about replacing the cabinet for electricity meters (+4000€) for heat pump installation.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#69

Post by pjc50 »

lnsru wrote: post #68
stefanfisk wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the calculus behind 40k? I just checked some Swedish vendors and here they calculate 12k for hardware and installation of a fairly large heat pump. https://www.polarpumpen.se/kunskapsbanken/varmepump-kunskaps...

State subsidies and insane overregulation. Think about replacing the cabinet for electricity meters (+4000€) for heat pump installation.

Why is that required? Switch to three phase? Wasn't required for me in the UK.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#70

Post by wkat4242 »

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.

Not sure about the UK. I've seen a lot of outdoor plumbing in Ireland. I lived in a place that had that. They were literally running on the outside. Our maintenance guy said they did that to make maintenance easier, but it also makes wear & tear a lot easier obiously (not to mention frost). And chipboard floors that would crack with heavy furniture. It was terrible quality. These houses were built in the mid 80s.

And a dirty tank of water in the attic to act as a "in-house water tower" because only one tap may be connected directly to the mains. Really archaic.

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