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Re: Air Source Heat Pump Cylinders - new, hybrid techology, MCS pending. Your though

It makes sense if possible, (and if permitted..) it will take a while though.

Giona are an Italian company and I guess they are not actually concerned about MCS / RHI - their target will be new build - the market place is larger.

A normal A2W ASHP goes Air to Refrigerant (Evaporator) , Refrigerant to Water (Condenser) , Water to DHW Water (HEX), if you can cut out the last stage and just go refrigerant (condenser) to DHW it makes sense and will be more efficient (saves a HEX and a pump etc etc) - It's not actually new technology, it's just a different way of doing it.

The energenie (love em / hate em not up for debate here..) has a similar cylinder, i.e. puts the condenser inside the DHW cylinder - it just goes refrigerant to DHW water

In principal it could be MCS/RHI approved, though it will not be eligible for RHI for a while as it will take them 6 - 9 months minimum to work with MCS and come up with a standard.

The current ASHP standard assumes primary use is space heating, and "ignores" the inefficiencies in heating DHW, for the same reasons that as you don't get deducted for Solar Thermal.

The challenge will be measuring its real COP/SPF, based on A-5/W65, as current ASHP's are only rated A7/W35 and heating the real info (A0,A-5,A-15/W45,W50) out of them can be like getting blood out of a stone sometimes (hence the MCS SPF's)...

They claim a headline COP of 2.98 yet don't state Incoming Air Temp or outgoing Water / detailed heat rise information, so at the moment, the information isn't compliant.

They also have an MCS Logo on their website, though it isn't (yet) listed in the MCS product database.

I think it is a good idea, and could well work for some people.

Though don't guarantee it will ever qualify for RHI even if MCS Approved - they are TWO DIFFERENT things as some other ASHP and Biomass boiler manufacturers recently found out when the RHI applications were rejected.

Just need to bear in mind the ducting needed for the air !!

Would be interesting to see the BSI / WRAS certification because of the (small) possibility of refrigerant leak into the DHW.
 
Re: Air Source Heat Pump Cylinders - new, hybrid techology, MCS pending. Your though

Thanks for the info, Gordon
 
Re: Air Source Heat Pump Cylinders - new, hybrid techology, MCS pending. Your though

looks the same as the Ecocent which has been available for a few years.

One other issue with these is the noise - 48db is far too loud to be mounted in the house, maybe ok for a garage or something - 43 db is the MCs limit for noise at the outside of a window to a habitable room, so 48db inside is pretty bad.
 
Re: Air Source Heat Pump Cylinders - new, hybrid techology, MCS pending. Your though

Looking at some of the various install photos for the ecocentg the other BIG issue is where you draw the incoming air from.

--- Remember the nibe exhaust air heat pumps mess up - Ecocent seem to suggest from a bathroom hence incoming at close to 21°C hence a high CoP, "with ducting to the chosen source(s) of waste heat" the CoP seems to fall through the floor if you take it from outddors, and of course you are then going to have plumb a drain for the defrost / cooling cycle "The unit is equipped with a condensate drain that must be properly directed to a suitable waste pipe" If you take it from inside then you need to bear in mind that you are heating that air already somehow..

So these can clearly work - however how should consider very carefully where the source of heat is coming from (it's air you've already heated another way...).

If you want to cool a space (e.g. a gym) then it may well be a good idea.

Remember Italy is a lot hotter country, and so has more 'waste' heat..

In the UK, if you have waste hot air you may actaully be better off recovering / recycling it so reducing your main heating load - e.g exhaust air heat recovery or something simple like this: Nuaire Group | Drimaster 2000
 
Re: Air Source Heat Pump Cylinders - new, hybrid techology, MCS pending. Your though

Update - the ecocent has MCS certification as an exhaust air heat pump... However the RHI has no provision for payment on DHW from exhaust air heat pumps...
 
Re: Air Source Heat Pump Cylinders - new, hybrid techology, MCS pending. Your though

--- Remember the nibe exhaust air heat pumps mess up - Ecocent seem to suggest from a bathroom hence incoming at close to 21°C hence a high CoP, "with ducting to the chosen source(s) of waste heat" the CoP seems to fall through the floor if you take it from outddors, and of course you are then going to have plumb a drain for the defrost / cooling cycle "The unit is equipped with a condensate drain that must be properly directed to a suitable waste pipe"

not exactly an issue given that it's an unvented cylinder and will therefore need to have a discharge pipe plumbed in for the PRV.

If you take it from inside then you need to bear in mind that you are heating that air already somehow..

So these can clearly work - however how should consider very carefully where the source of heat is coming from (it's air you've already heated another way...).

But if it's coming from a bathroom then this already requires extract ventilation under the building regs, so the choices isn't to extract the air or not extract it, it's about whether to extract the energy from that air or not, and how best to do this.

MHRV claim 80-90% heat recovery, but this is misleading as it relates to pure air temperature alone. In the region of 2/3 of the energy in the outgoing air would actually be in the form of the water vapour, and would need to be extracted as the latent heat of condensation, which will be done via a heat pump, but not much via a MHRV system. This is where exhaust air heat pumps get the majority of their energy from.

eta - the above mainly applies if the extract rate was around the same as required anyway, I suspect the air flow rate needed is quite a bit higher than required for a single bathroom.
 
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Re: Air Source Heat Pump Cylinders - new, hybrid techology, MCS pending. Your though

The man at Giona strongly advised against using and internal source for the inlet because it would be taking heat out of the house which has to be replaced by drawing heat in from the outside.
Logically it makes no sense to me to be pumping warmth out of the house only to draw cold air back in. There is no extractor fan anywhere nearby.
He stated that the inlet and outlet would both be outside.
I would only consider getting one of these if the (approximate) benefits can be seen on paper beforehand to show it adds up financially, and if it's quiet enough. No RHI is a bit of a killer.
The boiler room where the cylinder would go is next to the swimming pool which we are converting into a games room.
The pool pump is located in the boiler room and we could *just* hear that from the bedroom. That pump was, I can confidently guess, louder than 48db.
There is a plain wooden door in between the boiler room and the pool room, but still, we wouldn't want there to be any noise at inconvenient times from the cylinder.
So I'm thinking at this point that the 48db could well put a stop to the idea.
I think I'll have to go listen to one.
 
Re: Air Source Heat Pump Cylinders - new, hybrid techology, MCS pending. Your though

Are they at ecobuild? We're whizzing down there on Wednesday next week and already have a pretty full day schedued - especially as we just happen to have tickets for the England V Denmark game at Wembley :)
 
Re: Air Source Heat Pump Cylinders - new, hybrid techology, MCS pending. Your though

They have a 300 Litre demo unit running at the Gas Centre in Solihull.
 

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