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Will one wind turbine run two heat pumps?

  • 05-07-2010 9:09pm
    #1
    Pete_Cavan
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,099 ✭✭✭


    In my parents house we have an air to water heat pump. It takes the heat out of the air to heat the house/water which is great because before this we had to pay for oil. Of course the heat pump runs on electricity which is the only downside. Was thinking about installing a wind turbine to power the heat pump, which would effectively given us free heating. Does anyone know if that is worth the initial cost? Also my uncles house next door also has an air to water heat pump, would installing one wind turbine to power both heat pumps be more cost effective, splitting the cost and wasting less electricity (not sure if you can sell it back to the grid in Cavan)?


Comments

  • #2
    Poor Uncle Tom
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,546 ✭✭✭✭Poor Uncle Tom


    I would imagine it would depend on the size of each heat pump and also on the size of generator on the wind turbine. What size (electricity usage) are the heat pumps?


  • #3
    quentingargan
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,627 ✭✭✭quentingargan


    Hi Pete.

    At present, ESB doesn't allow you to share one wind turbine between two houses, so that isn't an option.

    The viability of a domestic wind turbine depends entirely on the site - many houses that think they have good wind, actually have quite turbulent wind, which decimates the output of a wind turbine. If you have clear fields wide open to winds from SE to NW via SW, then it may stack.

    But on a good site, a wind turbine would be viable with or without a heat pump. You can sell your electricity back to the ESB, and you will get paid 19c per KwHr for the first 3,000 units exported each year. The price falls to 9c for the remaining units. You need to work out what a turbine will produce and how much of this will be
    1. Used by yourself, saving you 15c during the daytime
    2. Used at night-time, saving you only 7c if you have day/night meter
    3. Sold to the ESB at 19c
    4. Sold to the ESB at 9c.
    Heat pumps deliver 4Kw of heat for 1kw of electricity (some more, some less). Unfortunately, gas fired electricity stations deliver about 1Kw of heat for 2.7Kw of gas (some less than this) so the efficiencies are largely lost. In the long term though, as Ireland moves to having more renewable energy on the grid, there will be supports to encourage people to move their electricity consumption to off-peak times. Heat pumps with a large buffer tank and underfloor heating may well become particularly economic then.

    However, if your heat pump is using daytime electricity to feed radiators with an efficiency of 300%, then the savings won't be that much.


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