ground source heat pumps

In message , Roger Mills writes

Your memory over a similar time scale is much better than mine:-)

Looks like a licence will be necessary. Oh well...

Yes. I also have rather a lot of outside wall to consider.

Hmm.... I'm OK with a big sheet of paper!

regards

Reply to
Tim Lamb
Loading thread data ...

Yes, that answers the question asked - "how much energy per day?"

However, a more useful calculation would be the *rate* of extracting energy (i.e. power) in kW. Have you worked that out?

[I'd be interested to know whether your calculation arrived at the same result as mine].
Reply to
Roger Mills

Yes it does work out the same

418.7MJ divided by number of seconds in a day (3600 x24) gives 4.84kW

Bob

Reply to
Bob Minchin

4.8kW

But only if you do extract the water cool it and put it back surely?

Can't you have a closed loop system, like that of a ground source heat pump, dangling in the river with the water naturally flowing past it? I guess you'd need some form of grid/channel to keep it clear of weed/branches etc which the EA might then consider "abstraction"... B-(

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Unfortunately the pumped concept falls at several hurdles.

More than 4.84kW is needed. Although river Lea water is *warm* (largely sourced from effluent treatment plants upstream) 5deg.C seems a realistic figure considering prolonged adverse winter weather.

The EA website gives abstraction charges of 15 to 28ukp per 1000m3 and trade effluent discharges are charged on anything exceeding 10m3 per day so it looks as if the project is doomed!

However, by cleaning out an existing drain paralleling the river bank, I can probably create a flow which would improve the performance of the slinky version. I am beginning to think that gas is best!

regards

Reply to
Tim Lamb

This idiot built his own house and put single glazing in. He hasn't a clue. Sad but true.

Reply to
Doctor Drivel

You never use actual water from a river in a heatpump..its merely a heat exchanger.

I guess you'd need some form of grid/channel to keep it

Not even that. You simply throw some coils 9figurateviely speaking) in te river bottom. and let them silt up and over.

Grund or water source heatpumps extract so little over such a large area that perfect conductivity is not an issue.

The working fluid in the primary will exit the heatpump at probably -5C or so. Its merely necessary to get it more or less up to +5C. Then the pump will boost the secondary temperatures to about +30 - +40C and chill the primary.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Have you calculated exactly what you need to maintain 19C on a cold winter day? As well as heat from the river you can also collect a bit more from the pipe run from house to river, plus additional insulation may sometimes be an option, plus other heat sources.

Do you actually know the winter river temp? It might be better.

NT

Reply to
NT

Which 200m2 are you heating, at the floor or at the ceiling or somewhere in between?

MBQ

Reply to
Man at B&Q

Don't forget that your calculated total heat requirement doesn't have to all come from one source. Yer average a working PC/monitor chucks out 100W or so, humans another couple of hundred watts each just sat still...

considering

I suspect it probably is the north sea surface temperature in mid winter doesn't get down to 5C, 8C is sort of average. It's about 15C ATM... With the river being fed "warm" effluent as well...

And is the absolute temperature all that important? We are dealing with a heat pump. It'll move the heat provided there is a positive delta T between the incoming circulated loop and the water. Obviously efficiency drops off at small delta Ts and if you freeze the water around the slinky. That's where the design is critical have a big enough area over which to extract the heat such that it doesn't freeze or the delta T get too small.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

If this is from a river, how fast does it flow, is there a fall across the land?

It might be better to put a turbine in, generate electricity and use that.

Reply to
dennis

He needs a heat exchanger. Pump water from river into heat exchanger. Pump water from heat pump into other side of heat exchanger. Sorted.

Reply to
Doctor Drivel

If they allow you too, which I doubt they will.

Reply to
Doctor Drivel

If the building is square, its about 14 meters square.

If its say 3 metres high, the total area external to the world is

200 sq meters of roof and 4x16x3 meters of wall

say 400 square meters in all.

I've ignored the floor here. If you feel its important add another 200 and make it to 600 sq meters worst case. That will just about cover the 'long thin' building. Presumably UFH is in the frame with a heat pump, so teh floor will be well insulated..

No with a U value of about 1 for reasonable insulation, that's about

600W per degree centigrade differential, and with say 25 degrees absolute worst case in winter, that's a total of 15KW.

However by my reckoning the average person in an office is around 200W of human heat, PCs etc and lighting and about 20 people minimum will be in that office, so its likely to only need around 9KW. Worst case. With about 3:1 upscale on the heat pump, about 3Kw electricity with a good ground source pump.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

An idea, but to get a few 10's of kW of electricity you need a good head and a hefty flow. IIRC 3kW of lecky needs a 20m head and 20l/sec flow, if that is available it could drive the heatpump of course...

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

There is absolutely no doubt that in terms of energy input versus useful house heating out, a heatpump is the no. 1 technology.

The only problems are cost of installation and the heat exchanger.

And of course where the energy comes from, BUT with a heat pump in a typical situation providing about 3:1 uplift in terms of heat output to electrical input, it means that even a 30% efficient power station matches a 90% efficient boiler.

If the electricity is at least partially carbon free (nuclear) then its also a huge carbon reducer.

Likewise, with UFH in winter, you can use off peak electricity when the outside temps are coldest, to get the house up to temperature - a temperature it may well keep (if well insulated and reasonably massive) for the whole day.

I would 100% use it in a new build, if adequate land area or pond volume is available, but its a bitch to retrofit. Air source might work in a small flat installation in urban environments where temperatures are constantly high because of heat leakage from buildings, but its crap in rural locations.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

60W ISTR:-)

No. Ask me next January. I was using 5deg.C as a starting point to enable ball park figure calculations. 4.8kW is way too low. The hope was to use a *green* heat source as a planning lure. The project requires a change of use consent for agricultural buildings in the green belt.

Maybe.

Quite. I expect the EA will come up with some unaffordable abstract/discharge fees and the project reverts to the multiple slinky model.

regards

>
Reply to
Tim Lamb

In message , "dennis@home" writes

No. uk.business.agriculture kindly did some sums and came up with about

3kW for the achievable fall and estimated flow.

If you use a leat, you fall into the abstraction/discharge pit.

regards

>
Reply to
Tim Lamb

Payback and CO2 reduction isn't huge if it is only displacing natural gas.

All the conversion work here is planned for under floor heating.

regards

>
Reply to
Tim Lamb

Floor. Unfortunately the existing layout leads to rather a lot of external wall:-)

regards

Reply to
Tim Lamb

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.