HEAT PUMPS

Heat Pumps as an Energy Storage Vector

Abstract

The energy/power spent in Ireland is mainly accomplished by the combustion of fossil fuels. Ireland's only original fossil fuel is peat; all other fossil fuels are imported. As fossil fuels constantly become more costly, their use as an power source furthermore has a contradictory influence on the environment. Ireland's power utilisation can be divided into three divisions: transport, electrical power lifetime and heat energy. Ireland although has a huge variety of high value renewable power resources. Ireland has set a goal that 33% of its electrical power will be developed from renewable causes by 2020. The use of biomass, breeze and sea power technologies is anticipated to play a foremost part in gathering this target. The use of Grid 25 (Airtricity) technologies will aid sustainable growth as well as being a answer to some power associated ecological problems. This research presents the present state of renewable power technologies and promise assets accessible in Ireland. Considering heat pumps for 20 houses in Irelands could be a future power blend is proposed.

Table of Contents

Abstract2

Chapter 1: Introduction4

Chapter 2: Literature Review13

Chapter 3: Research Methodology26

Chapter 4: Results and Analysis29

Chapter 5: Discussions30

Chapter 6: Conclusion32

References34

Chapter 1: Introduction

The annual world primary energy consumption increased by 2.4% in 2007 to 11,099.3 million tons of oil equivalent (mtoe) (BP, 2008). The majority of this energy consumption is obtained by combusting fossil fuels such as oil (3952.8 mtoe), natural gas (2637.7 mtoe) and coal (3177.5 mtoe) (BP, 2008). Nuclear energy (622 mtoe) and hydroelectricity (709.2 mtoe) only accounted for a small part of the overall primary energy consumption. In 2007 the global share of energy from fossil fuels was 88% of the total primary energy consumption. This global dependence on combusting fossil fuels to meet the growing energy demand is causing several energy related issues, including environmental problems, security of energy supply and cost competitiveness.

There are several factors that must be taken into account when evaluating energy sources, such as remaining reserves, stability of prices, geographical distribution, production shares, commercial status, reliability and environmental effects (Ozgur, 2007). In considering these factors, renewable energy technologies look promising and are rapidly becoming more appealing. The development of renewable energy technologies in Ireland is influenced by the Irish government energy policy. Since renewable energy sources are indigenous and non-polluting, they can deal with both security of supply concerns and environmental issues.

This research focuses to meet the various targets set by the Grid Management for heat pumps for 20 houses in Irelands. There are many different sources of renewable energy available to Ireland, including wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, tidal, wave and hydro. In terms of the energy consumption from renewable energy technologies in Ireland, hydroelectricity has been exploited for a long time with wind recently coming of age.

Ireland's Energy Requirements

Current status

The majority of Ireland's energy is consumed by electricity generation, heat generation and transportation. Ireland is heavily dependant on fossil fuel imports to meet these energy requirements. Ireland's energy import dependence reached 91% in 2006 (SEI, 2008), ...