Latest EST heat-pump field trials show improved performance
The Heat Pump Association (HPA) has welcomed, with some reservations, the findings of the second phase of the heat-pump field trials carried out by the Energy Savings Trust, which shows a significant improvement in performance over the results of Phase 1. Air-source heat pumps saw an improvement of 33%, and there was a 22% improvement for ground-source heat pumps.
The HPA is concerned that the results could be misunderstood to be representative of current practice, even though they include 38 results from Phase 1 that have been subjected to major interventions such as resizing the heat pump or minor intervention such as altering control parameters.
The Phase 2 results include six installations sized and designed to the new Microgeneration Certification Schemes MIS 3005 Issue 3.1 standards.
A consequence, points out the HPA, is that the fuel-cost savings demonstrated are somewhat poorer than would reasonably be expected from current installations because they are based purely on the efficiency of the field-trial results.
The HPA’s view is that improvements made via post-installation interventions will never achieve as good a performance as designing and installing properly in the first place.
Further comments from BEAMA’s marketing director Kelly Butler refer to the combined savings and income that can be achieved in the right circumstances. For air-source heat pumps, they are £1350 a year and for ground-source heat pumps £3000 a year.
