Technology
Harnessing renewable energy to heat water efficiently
The requirement to reduce energy bills and carbon emissions are driving the demand for alternative forms of water heating.
SAHP’s range of solar assisted heat pump water heaters meet this demand. The range can be best described as ‘a fridge in reverse’. Most people understand that the panel on the back of their fridge is an important factor in keeping its contents cold. Reversing this principle by using an aluminium evaporator (panel) to absorb heat rather than reject heat, allows us to utilise the ambient air temperature day and night, all year, to change the refrigerant liquid circulating through the panel from a liquid state to a gaseous state.
The returning refrigerant, now heated and in a gaseous state is then compressed and heated further.
The compressed refrigerant is then passed through a heat exchanger where the heat is transferred to the water, heating it to 55°C.
Most installations only require one thermodynamic evaporator panel and can be installed on a wall as well as a roof, both horizontally and vertically and once installed doesn’t need to be cleaned, or re-filled to operate.
Typically our Retrofit range is installed alongside your existing storage cylinder, within an 8 metre run of the panel, the installation of a SAHP130/200/300 would replace the need for a storage cylinder.
Our solar assisted heat pumps, along with the external panel, provide hot water in either the integral cylinder within the SAHP130/200/300 range or an existing storage cylinder along side a Retrofit, heating water day and night in all weathers, all year.
We have now designed our SAHPs to work more efficiently with customers who have Solar PV installed.
Our range can now be linked to the customers Solar PV Inverter, and during periods of the day the system can utilise some of the productivity of the solar electricity to store the temperature of the water within the hot water cylinder up to 60°C, instead of up to 55°C. This means the end user will enjoy a larger volume of hot water when they need it and maximise the electricity generated from their solar PV array.
Basic Key Points
For PV customers, while electricity is being generated from their PV panels the connected SAHP will heat the water up to 60°C.
Heating to 60°C rather than 55°C means up to 1.7 kWh more energy is stored in your cylinder in the form of hot water, effectively utilising a hot water cylinder as a boiler to store more energy when your PV array is generating, for use when the PV is not generating.
The installation is straight forward with the connection of only one wire needing to be connected to the inverter and it won’t compromise the existing solar PV array. Once connected – fit and forget – The Solar PV Ready feature is automatic and will kick in accordingly.
