In the nordics we love heat-pumps! Something like 70% of houses are heated by heat-pumps, and 90% of apartment buildings are heated by district heating and that is often generated by huge heatpumps.
Heatpumps have been heating nordic homes for decades. Even in the countryside where many houses have small woodland attached, people I know have moved to heatpumps for convenience and because its affordable.
PS: shoutout to to the JRC, found their reports when doing a super quick dig for stats. Those reports were super easy to read :D
> Something like 70% of houses are heated by heat-pumps
To me, living in US Northeast, this is astounding. I've read heat pumps lose efficacy below 25F. My family would never forgive me if I made our house cold. But then I see 70% of the Nordics's house are "warm enough", or dealing colder than room temperature houses.
I've asked half-dozen contractors and HVAC people in my area, and none of them have recommended a heat pump. But, I'm just as suspicious of their motives as I am of the science and environmental populizers on YouTube.
> ... modelling suggests the system will affect the average temperature of the river by less than 0.1C.
Okay, so that clears up the question I had, then. Not enough to make any appreciable difference.
There used to be a coal-fired power station on the east coast of Scotland, a little south of Edinburgh, Cockenzie, where the cooling loops dumped a huge plume of warm water into the sea. It was well-known as a local fishing spot, with surprisingly clean water flow detectable even a mile or so out from shore. That was several degrees warmer and definitely had a (possibly positive) influence on the ecology of the area - there were certainly a lot of interesting things swimming around there.
Germany at its best, instead of keeping its 20GW+ nuclear power running and get district heating pipes installed to them, they engineer this solution at x times the cost. In this case a 30km pipe from Philippsburg NPP would have done the trick.
It's the year 2135. Discussions about energy anywhere in Europe begin with the customary lament for Germany's shortsighted decision to cease nuclear energy production sometime in the 20th century. Nobody knows where this tradition originates from but it is rigorously upheld.
A bit OT, but since this article also mentions district heating: Are there any efforts to attach any of the recently built AI data centers (and their power plants) to district heating networks?
Those are some big heatpumps, but in terms of installed capacity at a single location they have yet to beat the Stockholm municipal heating utility's installation at Hammarbyverket, which since its most recent expansion in 2013 has a total of 7 heat pumps capable of extracting up to 225 MW of heat energy from treated sewage. The utility claims it is (still) the world's largest heat pump installation. Notably it actually uses both the hot and the cold side of the heat pumps; the cold side is sent into the district cooling network.
I am unsurprised that the big heat pumps are in Germany, because Germany as a country seems to be really into heat. As far as I can see, what is considered normal room temperature is about five degrees higher there than anywhere else.
I keep wondering if instead of moving water they could use "solid state" heat pipes instead. Especially for geothermal where you could just drive them into ground, no need to actually drill or circulate water.
Pipes moving water are cheaper than heat pipes, which are not "solid state", typically heat pipes contain a lot of water in liquid and vapour form under low pressure. If you wanted to move a lot of heat, you would need bigger pipes, which would need to withstand more force, so thicker. It's cheaper to just move that water with pump and if you place your inlet in proper place (higher than your machinery), you could even get some energy from flow of water.
I've lived in a couple houses built in the 80s that had heat pumps. why do people keep acting like heat pumps are a new thing? i feel like i'm taking crazy pills.
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[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 26.0 ms ] threadBrowsing on mobile, I saw no way of contacting them about the mistake.
Interestingly enough the price for these giant heatpumps is pretty much in line with domestic ~10kw units.
Apparently 95% of new heating installations in Swedish houses are heat-pumps these days: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC1...
Heatpumps have been heating nordic homes for decades. Even in the countryside where many houses have small woodland attached, people I know have moved to heatpumps for convenience and because its affordable.
PS: shoutout to to the JRC, found their reports when doing a super quick dig for stats. Those reports were super easy to read :D
To me, living in US Northeast, this is astounding. I've read heat pumps lose efficacy below 25F. My family would never forgive me if I made our house cold. But then I see 70% of the Nordics's house are "warm enough", or dealing colder than room temperature houses.
I've asked half-dozen contractors and HVAC people in my area, and none of them have recommended a heat pump. But, I'm just as suspicious of their motives as I am of the science and environmental populizers on YouTube.
IIRC in the Netherlands people don't like it, because it because it means that there is a single company supplying my heat, with
A 1.6GWe nuclear reactor is around $8B.
Okay, so that clears up the question I had, then. Not enough to make any appreciable difference.
There used to be a coal-fired power station on the east coast of Scotland, a little south of Edinburgh, Cockenzie, where the cooling loops dumped a huge plume of warm water into the sea. It was well-known as a local fishing spot, with surprisingly clean water flow detectable even a mile or so out from shore. That was several degrees warmer and definitely had a (possibly positive) influence on the ecology of the area - there were certainly a lot of interesting things swimming around there.
https://www.wienenergie.at/blog/staerkste-grosswaermepumpe-m...
a bigger one is planned:
https://www.wienenergie.at/ueber-uns/meilensteine/2022-spate...