You maybe thinking, why would you require a Commercial heat pump in your home? Modern day homes tend to have more then 1 bathing facility or W.C. A lot of them have at least 1 en-suite.
Hot water used only for residential buildings or homes is sometimes referred to as domestic hot water, or DHW. In actuality, though, the term refers to water used for household tasks like bathing, sinking, showering, and general ablutions. Therefore, hot water utilised in both residential and commercial spaces is referred to as DHW heating.
Since lowering CO2 emissions is the main priority for international policy, climate change is high on the agenda. The heating industry is thought to be a key contributor to CO2 reduction, which raises a number of concerns about potential new DHW heating applications and technology. Thus, we answer the commonly asked issue, “Can Commercial Heat Pumps be used for domestic hot water?” in this blog.
Hot water for the home and energy for buildings.
Best practice design principles can help lower the amount of energy needed for heating in a building. For instance, making a building as thermally efficient as feasible will reduce the amount of energy needed for heating services. With DHW heating, however, this isn’t the case because the demand is probably going to stay consistent.
Currently, gas-fired appliances are most often used to supply DHW services in both residential and commercial buildings. It could be a System Boiler with Cylinder, Gas Fired Storage Water Heater, Continuous Flow Water Heater or Combination Boiler.
The fact that DHW manufacturing is vulnerable to bacterial growth that naturally occurs in water supplies is one of the main issues with it. Incorrect production or storage of the DHW can lead to the growth of these microorganisms.
Reducing storage or using appliances that reach system temperatures above 60˚ C, including regions that require stored hot water, are the simplest ways to stop or slow this rise.
In these cases, the high temperatures will either eliminate the germs quickly or prevent them from having the chance to thrive. One advantage of gas appliances is that they can quickly reach higher temperatures or employ technology to operate at a precise temperature on demand.
Heat pumps can be crucial in the decarbonisation of this industry until ecologically friendly gases like hydrogen and rDME become more widely available. Gas appliances now run on fossil fuels.
So, is it possible to produce DHW with heat pumps?
The short answer is that heat pumps can be utilised to produceDHW. Regardless of whether they are ground source, commercial, or air source heat pumps.
Since they are able to:
Create heat that, like the heat from a system boiler with an indirect cylinder, can be transported into the water.
Considering
Temperature: In order for heat pumps to transport and store heat, a cylinder is needed. We would have to think about temperature control because of the germs in the water and the necessary storage.
Legionella: ACOP L8 and Building Regulations stipulate that stored water must be maintained at 60 C, a temperature that can inhibit the growth of Legionella.
Heat pump performance: At 60–63˚ Celsius, the most popular heat pumps available today can generate hot water. Although they are not as widely used as they may be, raised temperature heat pumps exist that can produce water temperatures higher than 70˚ C.
Hot water: Heat pumps work by killing off Legionella bacteria, however it takes longer at 55˚ C.
Oversizing: These precautions are meant to prevent oversizing the storage and guarantee that the amount of water stored in the system is used at least once or twice daily. If the maximum temperature for heat pumps is 55˚ C, we might consider incorporating immersions inside the cylinder. These immersions may be set up to occur every day during quiet times, heating the water to 60˚ C or more and killing any bacteria in the process. A pasteurisation cycle would be used to describe this procedure.
The HVAC industry is familiar with these metrics because they are necessary for constructing any DHW system, gas fuelled or electric, and switching from one to the other might only involve a little modification.
In summary, heat pumps are more than capable of providing hot water for household use. To guarantee that the best system is implemented, system designers need to take into account the performance criteria and design considerations outlined above.
Download our pamphlet now to learn more about the design of household hot water heat pumps and to see schematics! (Please refer to the sidebar) or go to our website on commercial heat pumps Technology for Commercial Heat Pumps: Rinnai UK (rinnai-uk.co.uk)
We understand that designing air source heat pumps is not an easy task, particularly when designing commercial heat pump systems, so we strive to make the process easier with our design support, capital expenditure, operating expenditure, and carbon modelling. For a free consultation with one of our heat pump experts, call Rinnai UK at (rinnai-uk.co.uk) or 0300 373 0660.
