70 degrees heat pump 7 November 2022 at 9:30AM edited 7 November 2022 at 9:48AM in Green & ethical MoneySaving 5 replies 173 views

2nd_time_buyer

This new Samsung heat pump is generating a fair bit of discussion over on the Facebook Octopus Smart tariff group.

https://youtu.be/rp0FdVZTxpE

My understanding is that it is able to operate at temperatures up to 70 degrees. Which would make it suitable for a straight swap for a conventional boiler (even with microbore pipes).

At the higher temperatures the efficiency obviously comes right down but the argument is that it won't need to operate at those temperatures for much of the time in the UK. An installer on the group is claiming an overall COP of over 4, even for direct swap applications.

They are also claiming cheaper install, and lower noise. 

I believe Octopus are also developing a similar direct-swap heat pump.

It will be interesting to see how the real world performance pans out.

shinytop

It's an interesting concept but I'm not sure the SCOP would be very good at the higher temperatures suggested. Nobody knows what the real world SCOP in the UK will be because none have been installed. Even if only runs 15 degrees hotter than a 'normal' ASHP, i.e. in the range 50-60 degrees (as opposed to one like mine which is about 35-45 degrees)  the COP is going to take a big hit and it's probably going to be more expensive than gas to run.  

Also, these units, according to the manufacturers' dimensions, are bigger than the current limit for permitted development, so planning permission is required.    

2nd_time_buyer

shinytop said:

It's an interesting concept but I'm not sure the SCOP would be very good at the higher temperatures suggested. Nobody knows what the real world SCOP in the UK will be because none have been installed. Even if only runs 15 degrees hotter than a 'normal' ASHP, i.e. in the range 50-60 degrees (as opposed to one like mine which is about 35-45 degrees)  the COP is going to take a big hit and it's probably going to be more expensive than gas to run.  

Also, these units, according to the manufacturers' dimensions, are bigger than the current limit for permitted development, so planning permission is required.    

I think the point is that the output temperature varies as required i.e. for the vast majority of the time it will be running at a lower temperature. Interesting point on the planning as I am pretty sure the installer was also claiming they were comparably smaller. 

Reed_Richards

Any heat pump will be more economical to run if you make the output water temperature as low as possible; that's just the laws of physics in action.  If you have a conventional boiler and radiators then it's a good idea to replace the radiators with ones having a suitably larger surface area if you swap-out your boiler for a heat pump.  If you don't do that then your running costs for heating will be higher.  So although a high temperature heat pump may enable you to keep your existing radiators, that's still probably not the right thing to do.  

shinytop

2nd_time_buyer said:

shinytop said:

It's an interesting concept but I'm not sure the SCOP would be very good at the higher temperatures suggested. Nobody knows what the real world SCOP in the UK will be because none have been installed. Even if only runs 15 degrees hotter than a 'normal' ASHP, i.e. in the range 50-60 degrees (as opposed to one like mine which is about 35-45 degrees)  the COP is going to take a big hit and it's probably going to be more expensive than gas to run.  

Also, these units, according to the manufacturers' dimensions, are bigger than the current limit for permitted development, so planning permission is required.    

I think the point is that the output temperature varies as required i.e. for the vast majority of the time it will be running at a lower temperature. Interesting point on the planning as I am pretty sure the installer was also claiming they were comparably smaller. 

Yup I get that but most existing gas/oil systems running at 65-70 degrees won't heat the house at a lot less than that. So even if weather compensated, on average they're likely to run hotter, even if 70 degrees is rare.

Although they are single fan, they are quite chunky.  

zeupater

2nd_time_buyer said:

This new Samsung heat pump is generating a fair bit of discussion over on the Facebook Octopus Smart tariff group.

https://youtu.be/rp0FdVZTxpE

My understanding is that it is able to operate at temperatures up to 70 degrees. Which would make it suitable for a straight swap for a conventional boiler (even with microbore pipes).

At the higher temperatures the efficiency obviously comes right down but the argument is that it won't need to operate at those temperatures for much of the time in the UK. An installer on the group is claiming an overall COP of over 4, even for direct swap applications.

They are also claiming cheaper install, and lower noise. 

I believe Octopus are also developing a similar direct-swap heat pump.

It will be interesting to see how the real world performance pans out.

Hi

Aren't those performance stats/figures/claims pretty close to the Japanese 'Ecocute' systems being discussed on these boards ~10 years ago?

HTH = Z