Heat Pumps

HEAT PUMP MARKET POISED FOR RAPID GROWTH

Heat pumps will deliver impressive energy savings for a growing range of commercial buildings once the industry returns to normal working, according to Lochinvar’s Sales Director, Liam Elmore. I n the months before the COVID-19 crisis, the market for heat pumps had been growing rapidly. Regarded by the government as a pivotal technology in the push to reduce the carbon impact of heating, it remains poised the addition of new high temperature (HT) and higher output models to its Amicus range. Lochinvar now offers models up to 110kW, which on the edge of a major market breakthrough, are suitable for a range of which will no doubt gather pace when the LTHW and DHW applications. industry gets up and running again. The company also introduced an The UK has been steadily decarbonising Amicus low temperature (LT) range, its electricity supply and this has further which includes models with outputs of improved the technology’s already up to 464kW. Amicus LT heat pumps are impressive environmental credentials. designed for low temperature heating

Low carbon generation accounted for systems or for use in hybrid installations. more than 51% of the electricity supplied in They can be integrated with Amicus the UK in 2019, according to the Department HT or Boost heat pumps, or with high for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy efficiency water heaters and boilers. (BEIS). This represented a 2% increase Amicus Boost is the most recent compared with the year before and the addition. This is a water source range

National Grid confirmed it was the cleanest with outputs of up to 500kW. They year on record for electricity production. have an acceptance temperature

As a result, the carbon factor of grid electricity range of 10º to 35ºC and work well has fallen by more than half from 495 grams with heat recovery systems. in 2014 to just 200g of CO 2 for each kWh of At the same time, the company electricity generated today. BEIS now predicts restructured its product management it will be just 66 grams by 2035 as more and and technical teams with the addition more renewable sources come on stream. of new, dedicated heat pump roles. This makes heat pumps an extremely Customer support now includes preattractive option because they use electricity as installation visits for every heat pump their primary energy source and then multiply order received in addition to telephone that primary input by a factor of three or four. and email support. The pre-installation

LION’S SHARE visits are provided free of charge and are designed to ensure that installations To date, the lion’s share of UK demand has run as smoothly as possible. been in the new build, domestic sector with many The company also embarked new developments now using heat pumps as on a programme of employee their main source of heating and hot water. Take development to increase heat pump up has been much slower in commercial buildings expertise across several departments, where demand patterns are often very different supported by ongoing training. from residential. In the case of hot water, for For customers and the wider example, many commercial buildings experience market, Lochinvar developed a short peak demand periods when very high CIBSE approved CPD seminar on the volumes of hot water are required – leisure subject of heat pumps, which has centres and hotels being particular examples. been rolled out to many building Lochinvar has been supplying heat pumps services engineers throughout the to the commercial sector for more than 12 UK. This has proved beneficial to years, but progress had been relatively modest. a wide section of the industry.

Therefore, towards the end of 2018 the company All of this investment led to Lochinvar decided to invest in this market to realise its having an excellent year for heat pump potential, galvanise demand and drive sales. sales in 2019. At the same time, the The first step was to extend the company’s company has provided equipment range of products suitable to serve the for a range of projects, which will commercial building market. This included help towards achieving high energy

efficiencies and substantially lower carbon emissions for its customers.

HYBRID SOLUTION The company believes that its range of heat pump types and their ability to integrate has helped many clients procure a system which closely matches their expectations. The availability of a wide range of hybrid solutions has been particularly beneficial for retrofit projects.

In addition, the fact that the company can now provide a wide range of heat pump and hybrid packages has been a major factor in creating the volume of additional orders, specifications and enquiries.

Although this strategy was part of a strong company business plan to drive sales, it also had a wider aim of extending the reach of renewable heating and hot water solutions into more commercial buildings that had previously not been able to access this kind of technology.

As well as stand-alone heat pump sales, there is also increased demand for ‘hybrid’ systems where heat pumps are combined with high efficiency ‘conventional’ technologies like gas-fired boilers and water heaters to improve operating performance in projects where a fully renewable system was not an option either for financial or technical reasons.

As a result, there are now more commercial buildings where heating and hot water services are provided by heat pumps, many of which have been provided at reasonable capital cost for clients. There will also be many more in the future once we move back into more normal market conditions – so contributing to the ongoing decarbonisation of heat across the UK. www.lochinvar.ltd.uk