If you have an appliance in your house that can heat and cool, you have a bomba de calor. It works in a very ingenious way by taking advantage of the heat present in the air or in the ground, depending on the type of heat pump it is. These heat pumps can greatly help save on our electricity bill.
In this article we are going to explain what heat pumps are and how they can help us reduce the price of the electricity bill.
What are heat pumps
When it comes to heating your home, a heat pump takes heat from outside, either from the air or from the ground, even when it's cold outside. Then, through a special process, it increases that temperature and releases it inside your home to keep it warm and cozy.
When summer arrives and you need to cool your house, the heat pump can do it too. Instead of absorbing heat from outside, as it does for heating, in this case it takes heat from inside your house and expels it outside, thus cooling the environment inside.
What stands out the most about heat pumps is their energy efficiency. Unlike traditional heating and cooling systems, which can consume a lot of energy, heat pumps can be much more energy efficient for the amount of heat or cold they generate. This is because they take advantage of existing heat sources instead of creating heat from scratch, which can save money on your energy bill.
In addition to heating can cool and even provide domestic hot water to your home. They use 100% renewable energy. For aerothermal heat pumps, it is air, for hydronic heat pumps, it is water, and for geothermal heat pumps, it is earth. The most common types of heat pumps are:
- Air to air: They are the most available and the cheapest.
- Air-Water: They are ideal for underfloor heating installations.
- Water-Air and Water-Water: They absorb heat from water flows (nearby rivers or underground flows).
- Earth-Air and Earth-Water: They are used in geothermal heating installations. They extract heat from the ground at a constant temperature.
The system is very efficient due to its excellent energy performance and very low consumption. In fact, according to Greenpeace, it is the most efficient air conditioning method since 2011.
How much do heat pumps consume?
In Nordic countries such as Germany or Sweden, heat pumps have been a widely used domestic heating system for many years. And, in Spain, a country with the most favorable climatic conditions for its development, it is becoming an increasingly demanded system. Besides, reversible heat pumps are capable of covering the cooling needs, a very interesting solution for the center and south of the peninsula.
A heat pump can provide more thermal energy than it consumes in electricity. For every kilowatt-hour of electricity exploited, 3/4 come from renewable sources such as air, water or land. In other words, for every kilowatt-hour of electricity consumed by the heat pump system, the home receives 4 kilowatt-hours of heat. It is, therefore, a very efficient system: although the prices of electricity are a priori higher than those of natural gas or propane, The energy efficiency achieved by the heat pump means that electricity consumption is very low.
For situations where more energy is required or to meet increased heating needs, system combinations are available. Known as hybrid systems, they increase the energy efficiency of air conditioning units. The key is that they combine systems that use fossil fuels for energy, such as gas-fired condensing boilers, with renewable energy systems, such as heat pumps. The result is greater energy efficiency compared to the performance of gas-fired condensing boilers..
An increasingly interesting hybrid is that of heat pumps with photovoltaic energy, which can heat and cool a home almost for free once the solar installation has been amortized. When distributing heat, it is important to remember that a heat pump can use underfloor heating or low-temperature radiators, etc. Thus, it becomes a multifunctional system that can be adapted to various conditions according to the conditions and needs of each case.
How do you save energy?
For a better performance of the heat pump, it is better to avoid continuous stops and starts of the system. Having said that, It is convenient to have the heat pump on throughout the day. If you are going to be away from home for a few hours, it is advisable to program or lower the heating temperature a few degrees to avoid large heat jumps instead of turning off the heat pump completely. If it is turned off completely, the device has to work harder to recover power when it is turned back on.
In this case the best is to lower the room temperature to 17-18° without turning off the heat pump. It's always better if the walls don't get cold at all, so it's important to keep the temperature in check by using the thermostat to set day and night temperatures.
Solution in Mediterranean climate
The electrical energy consumed by a device under specific temperature conditions when it is fully charged. That is to say, COP measures the instantaneous performance of a heat pump per kW unit consumed.
According to Directive 2013/114/UE, heat pumps with an SPF (Seasonal Performance Factor) greater than 2,5, even if they work with electricity, are considered renewable. This factor measures the efficiency of the equipment throughout the year, where there are variations in temperature. Based on this metric, a heat pump is the most recommended option for less cold climates. This is the case in the Mediterranean climate, where temperatures do not very often drop below freezing point. In conclusion, The climate of Spain is the best climate for the development of this technology.
I hope that with this information you can learn more about what a heat pump is and how it can help us to save on the electricity bill.