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Issue 11, 2012
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A review of domestic heat pumps

Iain Staffell,*a   Dan Brett,b   Nigel Brandonc  and  Adam Hawkesd  
Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

a Imperial College Business School, Imperial College London, London, UK
E-mail: staffell@gmail.com
Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 2711

b The Centre for CO2 Technology, Department of Chemical Engineering, UCL, London, UK
E-mail: d.brett@ucl.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)20 7679 3310

c The Energy Futures Lab, Imperial College London, London, UK
E-mail: n.brandon@imperial.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 5704

d Centre for Energy Policy and Technology, Imperial College London, London, UK
E-mail: a.hawkes@imperial.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 5796

Abstract

Heat pumps are a promising technology for heating (and cooling) domestic buildings that provide exceptionally high efficiencies compared with fossil fuel combustion. There are in the region of a billion heat pumps in use world-wide, but despite their maturity they are a relatively new technology to many regions. This article gives an overview of the state-of-the-art technologies and the practical issues faced when installing and operating them. It focuses on the performance obtained in real-world operation, surveying the published efficiency figures for hundreds of air source and ground source heat pumps (ASHP and GSHP), and presenting a method to relate these to results from recent UK and German field trials. It also covers commercial aspects of the technologies, the typical savings in primary energy usage, carbon dioxide emissions abatement that can be realised, and wider implications of their uptake.

Graphical abstract: A review of domestic heat pumps

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Article information

https://doi.org/10.1039/C2EE22653G
Submitted
10 Mar 2012
Accepted
20 Sep 2012
First published
21 Sep 2012
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012,5, 9291-9306
Article type
Review Article
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A review of domestic heat pumps

I. Staffell, D. Brett, N. Brandon and A. Hawkes, Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, 5, 9291
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE22653G

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