Not being able to handle the full range of average and peak(valley?) temps means a lot more complexity that prevents adoption.
https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/articles/doe-efforts-s...
“Bosch, Carrier, Daikin, Johnson Controls, Lennox, Midea, Rheem, and Trane Technologies participated in the challenge. They successfully completed prototype testing at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and other facilities in 2022 and 2023, with some units operating at temperatures as low as –15°F (–26°C) while still meeting efficiency requirements. The companies then moved products into field testing in 23 residential sites located across 10 U.S. states and 2 Canadian provinces. In partnership with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, each site gathered a full year of data. U.S. testing sites were in the Northeast, Midwest, and Mountain regions.
In the field, the residential CCHPs reliably provided heat with little assistance from auxiliary elements, even during the coldest winter periods.”
Having looked at getting a heat pump set up in our house (built in 1902) is that even with the extra insulation we put in, the energy needs of a heat pump are huge which means more electricity is needed and what with congestion happening locally is getting to be a problem to supply all houses with enough oomph to run heat pumps, electric stoves and charging EV’s.
Even with people having solar installations this remains a problem because we’ve had almost three consecutive weeks with heavy cloud cover and fog as well as hardly any wind. So renewable power generation was down across the board.
Fact of the matter is, we adopted many energy hungry solutions without providing the necessary capacity up front.
I worked at a startup (Jedlix) where we built a platform to optimise EV charging specifically to deal with these problems (demand shifting) but there are so many hurdles to get this rolled out at a large enough scale to matter.
Car OEMs don’t provide the necessary APIs, (local)grid companies won’t provide usage data necessary to steer on so billing/compensation becomes impossible removing the incentive for consumers.
It seems so obvious that this would solve a real problem but even though the technology exists it’s not going anywhere. Maddening
I actually am hoping that better grid coördination could help a lot with the problem you describe, there's a few companies in the space but I can't think of big ones in NL. In the UK you have Octopus Energy which has effectively made a (virtual) power plant by managing individual assets.
I guess you could look up the insolation values and do the math on how much water you use and how hot it needs to be.
If there’s no sun you’re looking at a different energy source which typically means electricity so you’re back to the demand problem when the weather is poor regarding renewable power.
What’s more challenging is that when it comes to EV charging in cities not a lot of people actually have their own charging station and need to use public ones. That means they’re in use all the time and “throttling” them causes availability problems.
One of the challenges would be to get people to charge their cars during the day when there usually is a power surplus (especially with solar when the weather is decent) but that’s a behavioural change that takes time.
How are most homes in England heated? Gas furnace + radiators?
Which is why heat waves/domes can be so lethal in Europe: people/infrastructure are not prepared for them.
* https://climate.copernicus.eu/heatwaves-brief-introduction
Same problem in Vancouver, Canada: it's a Marine climate, so when heat hits, folks aren't prepared for it.
Have heard a few stories about it and it’s also a quite common topic in HOA meetings when someone wants to place an aircon unit.
This is near Ithaca NY, where the coldest month (January) has an average low of 18 F.
The only issue I've seen is the large buildup of ice below the outside unit. The unit is elevated on legs for just this reason so it hasn't affected its operation. The ice is formed when the outside unit goes through its defrost cycle in cold weather; water dripping off freezes when it hits the ground.
They all have back-up electric heat elements that kick on when the heat pump can’t keep up. In our mid-70s build home (mediocre insulation and windows), that happens somewhere in around 15F. Basically a few nights/month in Jan and Feb. I can see the bump in electric bill when we have an unusually cold winter.
But, overall it’s not a bad system. Most of the time, it works fine. The one downside (vs radiant heat) is it can feel drafty. But that’s going to be true of any forced-air heat.
Anyway, sounds like you’re right on the edge of where a heat pump might be suitable, so you’ll need to talk to a specialist (or at least somebody else who’s used one locally). They’ve come a long way in efficiency and if it’s a new home, the better insulation will help a bunch too.
But in winter, when I’m using more hot water, the heater is cooling a house I’m desperately trying to keep warm? Not sure that’s any better. Is the amount of cooling noticeable? We’re in a small (by US standards), mid-70s home - it’s already next to impossible to keep the basement warm enough to use in January.
I suspect once I have sufficient insulation and air sealing, and condensing gas hydronic heat for when the exterior temperature drops below 5°F (COP 2.0) the overall system will be very cost effective month to month. Although the upfront cost is nontrivial, so it's a payback period measured in decades.
I also augment with a wood burning stove.
For new construction that's properly air sealed and insulated, heat pumps with resistive baseboard backup would probably be sufficient.
Nowadays the air con uses the same heat pump to extract heat from the house and pump it into the ground, which not only chills the house but also helps a little recharging the ground source.
YMMV. Good luck, hope it works out for you too :)
If the big initial cost is rolled into home construction it would be less daunting and more normal. So I expect newer homes to adopt heat pumps in cold areas but with little adoption in existing homes.
Yes they are often installed in bores into bedrock.
All those pesky Scandinavians must be doing it because it makes economic sense.
Step back and think that if you don’t know the details then all the excuses you can imagine are probably misleading or wrong.
>If the big initial cost is rolled into home construction it would be less daunting and more normal. So I expect newer homes to adopt heat pumps in cold areas but with little adoption in existing homes.
Crikey:
> For zones with exceptionally harsh winters, the Arctic mini split AC with heat pump ensures you stay warm even when temps get down to -31 degrees F.
* https://www.haierappliances.com/ductless/arctic-next-gen-ser...
-35˚C.
Main problem is price... The air-water heat pump which looks match my house something from 4000-4500€ and I living in small house. Yes there is government assistance, but main requirement is to remove (to wall up) chimney and remove burning stove... which during cold winter will rake costs to insane numbers.
I got one and while this winter has been mild, not much below 15F so far, last winter we had couple of weeks below -5F and we had a nice 73F indoor without issues.
And to be frank I don't care if it's less efficient couple of weeks during winter if it's more efficient the remaining 50 weeks.
Bonus points is that it can keep us cool during summer, unlike a furnace or heating panels.
Plus 23 EUR/mo fixed charge