Battling the cold with new air-source heat pump
I don’t know about any of you, but it’s frickin’ cold in Ontario right now, so it’s this time of the year when we rely heavily on home heating. Ontario is a mish-mash of different technologies: resistance heating, natural-gas furnaces, oil furnaces and propane. Out of them all, the most affordable option is natural gas.
Now, natural gas is okay but it’s not ideal. It still emits greenhouse gases and NOx. It’s also becoming more volatile and is likely to become much more expensive over the coming years. Also, the power mix in Ontario will become cleaner over the next decade — no coal, more nuclear, hydroelectric, wind and natural gas. So there’s an argument that heating your home with electricity could be cleaner than using natural gas, if you can do it efficiently — in other words, if you can find a better way than using resistance heating.
This has many people in Ontario looking at geothermal. But these ground-source heat pump systems are a big gamble — with a big upfront pricetag and half the system underground, if something goes wrong with the installation it’s a major pain in the you know what to fix.
I wrote a story today (companion story here) on Hallowell International, a fairly new company based in Maine, that has developed an air-source heat pump that works in colder climates — i.e. Canada and the U.S. north. Company founder Duane Hallowell, a 34-year-old engineer who was a cryogenics expert with the U.S. Navy, realized that conventional air-source heat pumps that are popular in the U.S. south do not perform well in cold climates and are therefore not economical. So he went ahead and built his own, called Acadia, and it can operate efficiently down to minus 30 degrees C.
Hallowell argues that its system is three times more efficient than resistance heating, but on an annual basis cheaper than natural gas, propane and oil (though the payback on natural gas is longest). In downtown Toronto, where drilling bore holes for geothermal is prohibitively expensive, if not impossible, using an air-source system instead that requires no digging, is nearly as efficient as geothermal, and can provide both heating and cooling is an attractive proposition.
The company still has a long way to go to build confidence in the industry, but Mitsubishi is apparently coming out with its own competing model to Acadia, which is good news. It could be that over the next few years Acadia-style air source heat pumps will pose a major challenge to high-efficiency natural gas furnaces, particularly in densely populated urban areas, and give the gas company pause for thought.
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca
February 11th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Government needs to recognize this technology, or better yet, just hold out the jump higher efficiency hoop to all of industry and see who can leap through it, rewarding those who can. Govt shouldnt be prescribing tech, giving ground-source a higher rebate than air-source; takes us down the same road as subsidizing fossil.
February 11th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
ground source heat pumps aren’t really a “big gamble.” Unless you get somebody who doesn’t know what they’re doing to install it, the underground portion will last for a thousand years. Most polyethylene pipe manufacturers offer crazy 50 or even 100 year warrantees on their product, and installers usually back it up with a warrantee of their own. If something’s going to go wrong underground, it will likely happen in the first year and will clearly be the fault of the installer, who will have to cough up the repair costs if he hopes to stay in business. just make sure you get an installer who know’s what they’re doing and properly sizes everything (getting mis-sized system is really the biggest risk here, and it’s equally likely to occur with an air-source heat pump). Make sure the well-driller isn’t the guy who sizes it- they typically don’t have the enigneering background necessary to do a good job on that.
February 12th, 2008 at 10:47 am
There are European companies making integrated units which include a mechanical ventilation with heat recovery, air to water heat pump, thermal store and draw air for the system through a ground to air heat exchange.
Its a neat solution for very low energy buildings:
http://www.drexel-weiss.at
February 12th, 2008 at 11:56 am
I agree with the first comment that the government should put regulations on meeting a certain target and letting industry battle out with technologies that can meet that target. For example, the Passive House standard that started in Germany and is becoming popular all over Europe and is making its way to North America calls that in northern climates, that the heating consumption should be less than 15 kWh/m2/year. This would be an ambitous target that would demand energy efficient heating with other measures. It would need to be adjusted for Canada’s different climate zones, but it would work. There should be incentives, but give choice to customers and the construction industry on what technologies they prefer.
As for this comment on ground-air heat exchangers, there are many technologies that are emerging. Another example of a ground to air heat exchanger heat pump has been released by REHAU: http://www.rehau.co.uk/building.solutions/civil.engineering/ground.heat…geothermal.energy/awadukt.thermo.shtml.
February 12th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
I agree with your statements and the approach that government should make targets. The only thing that bothers me is the behaviour of the construction industry. Today, you can build a cheap (and competitive) house with passive energy technologies, better air and living qualities, benign materials and low water consumption. All these wonderful things are available and easy to find in North America, but…. the construction industry still struggles to build even R-2000 (an energy efficiency standard) homes. They seem to be in a rut where building cookie-cutter houses is just the way to do things, even if they claim it is cheaper for the customer. I think that a Heavy Hand needs to guide the construction industry to recognize the value of passive technilogies, especially like these efficient heat pumps.
One way to do this is to start your own house construction company or design a home that can be easy replicated and find a construction business willing to try something new.
Darklamp
February 13th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Isn’t this timely! Last week I discovered that some Japanese manufacturers were using R744 refrigerant (plain old CO2) to make high efficiency cold climate heat pumps, on Monday I heard a radio phone-in show extolling the virtues of Hallowell’s cold climate heat pump, and now this article. I have a long standing desire to install a ground source heat pump (I refuse to call it geothermal), but this technology might make me change my mind.
March 4th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
BE Careful. The skinny on the Cold Weather Pump from Maine is that they do not last. I got this from a company engineer involved in their development.
March 24th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
The last statement makes me very cautious about installing one on my new constuction in AZ where the daily climate can change up to 50 degrees or more.
May 5th, 2008 at 8:22 am
Is this statement an actual fact or not. I am looking to purchase something in the next 2 weeks and am really excited about this technology. is there any way to get the inside scoop on this unit.
thanks
April 18th, 2009 at 10:08 am
The company engineer involved with their development making statements about the longevity of their cold climate heat pumps couldnt be more wrong how can an engineer make a statement about a product that uses products that have been proven industry leaders i.e. compressors contactors coils etc, that many other manufacturers use . Thats one of the greatest features of the acadia heatpump is that the parts inside of them are widely used all accross north america . If your in between the ground source heat pump and acadia technologies contact hallowell in bangor maine ask them about the acadia . As a company owner and technician in the heating and air conditioning trade, i can tell you the best move ive made was to get on the cold climate heat pump ride its going to definetly revolutionize the heat pump and heating industry.
February 2nd, 2010 at 2:49 pm
I distribute heat pumps for North road tech. formerly Nyle special products .
they also will release this year a cold climate air to air , and a air to water heat pump for cold climates like ours in eastern canada .
they also make a domestic hot water heat pump called the geyser (dhwhp) .
they can make custome sized comercial units in this tech as well.
one of the other pruducts they make is a dehydration kyln , from 200bdft-50,000bdft.
I believe that now is the time to invest in the most effeicent ways to heat and cool our homes as well as our domestic hot water , the second most expensive use of power in our homes today .
if energy is broken up by use in the home as a percentage it would look like this .
55% for home heating , 21% for domestic hot water , the rest is lights and appliances .
heating can be reduced buy 1/2 -27.5% even in jan. and feb.
domestic hot water can be reduced by 2/3 -14% all year round .
lead bulbs and cfl bulbs can make a significant difference , and energy star appliances too.
and yes up grades to better window and more insulation for the basement , walls and attic .
all these can make a difference in your bottom line , but if that is not your only reason ,
then look at mini-hydro, solar pva,and thermal panels , and micro wind turbins too.
all this is doable how much is up to you. just my 2 cents worth . KM.
February 2nd, 2010 at 2:54 pm
SORRY , lead i ment to wright LED BULBS
they realy work and some at less than 1/40 the watts compared to incandesent bulbs .
thats the energy you use in the first 3 weeks a year now powers your lights for your home the whole year . thank you for this post .KM.