Aspiration Energy, Blog, Heat Pumps

Does \”heat pump\” double electrical energy?

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Does \”heat pump\” double electrical energy? Dugna? Ottikku retti? Ponzi scheme? Claims of one unit (KWHr) of electricity producing 2 units of cooling and 3 units of heat – getting the useful energy of 4-5 times – how does this work? Is it defying laws of physics? The law of conservation of energy: Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another\” – can we defy that? Let\’s see. One of the most common apparatus in the world is an air-conditioner. Let\’s consider what happens in that. Inside the air-conditioned room is colder than outside. That means, the heat from inside of the room needs to be pushed out – is it not? But, heat flows from hotter place to colder place! How does this reverse flow happen? This is like a water pump – a pump pushes water from a lower level to a higher level – reverse of what usually can happen – usual flow is from a higher level to lower level. That is accomplished by \”work\” done by the pump. This is precisely the reason why a heat pump is called a heat \”pump\” – it pumps heat from a colder place to a hotter place. We provide electrical energy to the equipment in the air-conditioner – but, what happens is the heat energy from inside the room is pushed (pumped} to the outside. Now, if you go near the outside unit of an air-conditioner, you would have realized that it is hotter than the atmosphere. It needs to be so for pushing the heat outside. In a heat pump system – the heat given out to the atmosphere in air-conditioning system is used to heat water. That is about it. So, one unit of electricity is used to \”pump\” 2 units of heat from a colder place to a hotter place! What is gotten is not what is given – but like water – what is obtained is what is pumped. One unit if electricity is not \”converted\” to 2 units of heat – but it \”pumps\” 2 units of heat from a colder place to a hotter place through work delivered by a heat \”pump\” which is operated by electricity. Pay for heating and get cooling free! What is all this \”Buy One – Get One Free\” kind of talks in industrial and commercial heating / cooling side? Is this a marketing gimmick? Is it true? Again, going back to the earlier post on \”pumping\” of heat from a colder place to a hotter place, let\’s define what happens. In a hot place – say Chennai – average outside day temperature of – say 35 deg C. what we need inside the room is – say 25-degree C. Heat needs to be \”pumped\” from 25 deg C to 35 deg C. For this to happen the Air-conditioner needs to deliver \”cold\” at a much lower temperature than 25 degrees C – for air in the room to get cool. Routinely – air-conditioners work in the 6 to 8 degrees range. Let\’s look at outside – if the heat needs to be pushed outside – the air conditioner needs to have a temperature over 35 degrees – air-conditioners typically deliver 45-50 degrees. A \”lift\” in a typical home air-conditioner is 6 degrees (cooling side) to 50 degrees (heating side). In an air-conditioner scenario also, it is possible to \”harness\” the heat given away by the external unit. But, at 50 degrees C, it is difficult to use that heat. Now, come to heat pumps: The heat pumps operate at a \”lift\” of 20 degrees (cooling side) to 60 degrees (heating side). Some of the modern heat pumps can deliver 20 degrees {cooling side) to 90 degrees (heating side). It is the hot side that is used for heating water – to say 55 degrees to 60 degrees (or up to 85 degrees In modern heat pumps). How about the cold side? 20 degrees can be put to use? At least in a factory environment? Or, in a hotel room? Or in any process that requires cold temperatures of 20 degrees C? Of course – yes. Voila – we have answered how this seemingly physics-law-defying Ponzi scheme is not a Ponzi scheme. It is not the conversion of electricity into heat like in conventional electric heaters, but \”pumping\” of heat. Here is the limitation and its possible solutions: One side must be primary: In heat pump system – the primary objective is to heat the water to 60 deg c (or 85 deg c in case of modern ones) – so, if the cooling side does not operate, the heating side also will stop. Hence, if our primary objective is heating, we need to ensure that the heat can be \”pumped\” even if the cooling side does not operate. This is a common failure by many designers who have hybridized the system without backing up for situations when heating and cooling are not operating simultaneously. What have we done? What we have done in such cases is to take the colder side and back it to a sump or a heat sink that can take the heat and get cool. In one case, we have used this to cool the tank that provides input water to a cooling tower – this way the cooling tower also gets more efficient, saving energy. In a hotel room kind of a scenario – while this \”free\” cooling can reduce the load on the air conditioner,  we need to have back up air-conditioners. Applications of cooling: Factory shop – to provide a better environment for workers – in this case, it can be optional, and hence they get the benefit only when the heat pump is running. We can create an \”oasis room\” that has a few seats and a water fountain which area is maintained cold by the heat pump\’s cooling side.

Aspiration Energy, Blog, Heat Pumps

Does \”heat pump\” double electrical energy?

/

Does \”heat pump\” double electrical energy? Dugna? Ottikku retti? Ponzi scheme? Claims of one unit (KWHr) of electricity producing 2 units of cooling and 3 units of heat – getting the useful energy of 4-5 times – how does this work? Is it defying laws of physics? The law of conservation of energy: Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another\” – can we defy that? Let\’s see. One of the most common apparatus in the world is an air-conditioner. Let\’s consider what happens in that. Inside the air-conditioned room is colder than outside. That means, the heat from inside of the room needs to be pushed out – is it not? But, heat flows from hotter place to colder place! How does this reverse flow happen? This is like a water pump – a pump pushes water from a lower level to a higher level – reverse of what usually can happen – usual flow is from a higher level to lower level. That is accomplished by \”work\” done by the pump. This is precisely the reason why a heat pump is called a heat \”pump\” – it pumps heat from a colder place to a hotter place. We provide electrical energy to the equipment in the air-conditioner – but, what happens is the heat energy from inside the room is pushed (pumped} to the outside. Now, if you go near the outside unit of an air-conditioner, you would have realized that it is hotter than the atmosphere. It needs to be so for pushing the heat outside. In a heat pump system – the heat given out to the atmosphere in air-conditioning system is used to heat water. That is about it. So, one unit of electricity is used to \”pump\” 2 units of heat from a colder place to a hotter place! What is gotten is not what is given – but like water – what is obtained is what is pumped. One unit if electricity is not \”converted\” to 2 units of heat – but it \”pumps\” 2 units of heat from a colder place to a hotter place through work delivered by a heat \”pump\” which is operated by electricity. Pay for heating and get cooling free! What is all this \”Buy One – Get One Free\” kind of talks in industrial and commercial heating / cooling side? Is this a marketing gimmick? Is it true? Again, going back to the earlier post on \”pumping\” of heat from a colder place to a hotter place, let\’s define what happens. In a hot place – say Chennai – average outside day temperature of – say 35 deg C. what we need inside the room is – say 25-degree C. Heat needs to be \”pumped\” from 25 deg C to 35 deg C. For this to happen the Air-conditioner needs to deliver \”cold\” at a much lower temperature than 25 degrees C – for air in the room to get cool. Routinely – air-conditioners work in the 6 to 8 degrees range. Let\’s look at outside – if the heat needs to be pushed outside – the air conditioner needs to have a temperature over 35 degrees – air-conditioners typically deliver 45-50 degrees. A \”lift\” in a typical home air-conditioner is 6 degrees (cooling side) to 50 degrees (heating side). In an air-conditioner scenario also, it is possible to \”harness\” the heat given away by the external unit. But, at 50 degrees C, it is difficult to use that heat. Now, come to heat pumps: The heat pumps operate at a \”lift\” of 20 degrees (cooling side) to 60 degrees (heating side). Some of the modern heat pumps can deliver 20 degrees {cooling side) to 90 degrees (heating side). It is the hot side that is used for heating water – to say 55 degrees to 60 degrees (or up to 85 degrees In modern heat pumps). How about the cold side? 20 degrees can be put to use? At least in a factory environment? Or, in a hotel room? Or in any process that requires cold temperatures of 20 degrees C? Of course – yes. Voila – we have answered how this seemingly physics-law-defying Ponzi scheme is not a Ponzi scheme. It is not the conversion of electricity into heat like in conventional electric heaters, but \”pumping\” of heat. Here is the limitation and its possible solutions: One side must be primary: In heat pump system – the primary objective is to heat the water to 60 deg c (or 85 deg c in case of modern ones) – so, if the cooling side does not operate, the heating side also will stop. Hence, if our primary objective is heating, we need to ensure that the heat can be \”pumped\” even if the cooling side does not operate. This is a common failure by many designers who have hybridized the system without backing up for situations when heating and cooling are not operating simultaneously. What have we done? What we have done in such cases is to take the colder side and back it to a sump or a heat sink that can take the heat and get cool. In one case, we have used this to cool the tank that provides input water to a cooling tower – this way the cooling tower also gets more efficient, saving energy. In a hotel room kind of a scenario – while this \”free\” cooling can reduce the load on the air conditioner,  we need to have back up air-conditioners. Applications of cooling: Factory shop – to provide a better environment for workers – in this case, it can be optional, and hence they get the benefit only when the heat pump is running. We can create an \”oasis room\” that has a few seats and a water fountain which area is maintained cold by the heat pump\’s cooling side.

Blog, Solar thermal, White Paper

7 Reasons to consider Roof Top Solar Thermal than Solar PV

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  Solar Energy is most often implied as Solar Photovoltaic Energy with electric energy as the output.Solar thermal energy is not as predominant in the Solar Renewable energy scenario as Solar PV. Let us consider the current scenario around the world.  The total Solar Thermal Capacity being utilised in the world currently is 465 GigaWatts. This mostly is accounted by small scale and household utilisation. This, when compared to the solar photovoltaic base capacity installed – around 303 GW – is more than 50 percent higher.        Having said that, the industrial utilisation of Solar Heating systems remains paltry. 100 Million Tonnes of Oil is used in Industries for heating applications of which 15 million tonnes are used for below 250°C applications. This amounts to around 93 GW Solar Potential for under 250°C and approximately 20GW potential for under 100°C applications   This is huge in terms of unharnessed solar energy, potentially saving millions of rupees and carbon emissions. We shall now look into this disparity in terms of pragmatic factors.   The cost of Solar Thermal Solutions is more than 1 to 2 crores cheaper for every MW generated using Solar Power technologies. Space occupied by a solar heater is  3000 sq. m whereas 1 MW solar PV takes about 10000 sq. m.. Energy produced by solar heaters in a year also is often more than Solar PV. Why then is  Solar PV still more prevalent?     The reasons vary from low awareness on the potential Solar heating Technologies to the unappealing nature of  Solar Thermal Systems to Low Media coverage on its success.   With governments focusing on more and more sustainable energy solutions these forms also deserve the same attention, if not better, than the usual renewable energy solutions.   In the following series of blog posts posted every Thursday, we shall look into the 7 factors that make Solar thermal Solutions more feasible than Solar Photovoltaic systems and study the processes of implementing these systems.        

Blog, Case Studies

Aspiration Energy conferred the Climate Solver Award for 2013

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The world is currently addressing the imminent threat of climate change, renewable energy systems are thriving, and governments are bringing in more and more initiatives to mitigate greenhouse gases.Climate Solver Award is one such initiative by The World Wide Fund in association with the Government of India, and other stakeholders like innovation incubators, industrial associations and business networks that play an important role in helping and supporting climate innovation solutions.The Wild Life Fund awards small to medium scale enterprises for their potential to produce renewable energy technologies that reduce the carbon emissions. More details about the award can be found here.      Aspiration Energy, a sustainable industrial heating solutions provider, was awarded the Climate Solver Award in the year 2013 for executing eight commercial scale solar thermal installations for industrial process heat projects equivalent to 1 MW.     The scale and numbers have since drastically increased with the company now saving around 1000 MW of energy.Also, carbon emissions, around 2.5 Megatonnes, and energy savings amounting to nearly 4 Crores have been prevented owing to the projects running under Aspiration energy.The projected savings, from the next 10 years, will be around 200 Million tonnes of carbon.It is this commitment towards sustainable industrial solutions that make it the leader in this industrial solar thermal sector in India.With a ‘more than happy’ client base from the savings given, cutting edge technology, and committed principle towards a better the future looks bright

Blog, Heat Pumps, Solar thermal

Accomplish decarbonizing with Heat Pump and Solar Thermal systems

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Our energy system is extraordinarily carbon-intensive and highly polluting. Consider this. In 2013, only 3% of India’s primary energy demand (both electricity and thermal energy) was met by non-carbon sources (predominantly nuclear and renewables that do not include biomass) (Source: International Energy Agency). Fossil fuels account for 73% of the total source of energy, and biomass accounts for 24%. While biomass is considered a renewable energy source, it is still carbon-based and a polluting source. It goes without saying that unless the energy sources are decarbonized, there is no way for India to grow in a clean and greenway. It is true not only for India but also for the entire world. Countries across the globe are launching new initiatives to tackle global climate change, reducing pollution and improving quality of life by deploying technologies that can decarbonize energy. Global scenario One very specific and highly visible example is the Coal to Electricity program launched by the Chinese central and local governments to combat the high levels of air pollution and haze in China, especially Beijing, during winters. In December 2015, Beijing declared its first Air Quality Red Alert, as a result of the elevated smog within the city, and shut down schools and some industrial areas as a result of the air pollution levels. Widespread coal combustion for providing heat during winters is a major factor attributed to the high levels of air pollution during winter in Beijing. (New Delhi faces a similar problem, and in December 2016, Telegraph newspaper ran a story titled “ Pollution in Delhi hits new heights as tourists take smog selfies”). Under the Coal to Electricity program, the government mandated the replacement of coal-fired boilers by electrical heating devices like electric resistance-based heaters and Heat Pumps. The government gave about 90% subsidy on the capital equipment for the replacement of coal-based heating devices. According to the China Heat Pump Alliance, around 161,000 Heat Pumps were installed in 2016 in Beijing under the “Coal to Electricity” Programme and the Beijing government gave a subsidy of 5 Billion RMB for these Heat Pumps. This and the Chinese government\’s other programs are expected to reduce localized pollution due to decarbonization in cities like Beijing. While China’s decarbonization programs are implemented out of immediate needs, Europe, especially Germany, has been taking more proactive policy approaches. For example, Germany, as part of its Energiewende, has a national goal to increase the % of renewable heat to 14% by 2020. Towards that, “from January 1, 2016—construction of new buildings will only be permitted if they use energy generated from renewable sources for space and water heating. This includes the use of solar, solar thermal, biomass, efficient heat pumps, etc. Oil burners are completely banned as a means of heating new buildings.” More recently, during the last week of June 2017, several stakeholders in Europe come together to “launch two campaigns committed to ushering renewable and low-carbon energy to the forefront of Europe’s power landscape”. Both the campaigns – the Electrification Alliance and Make Power Clean – target the decarbonization of energy using renewable(solar/wind) energy generation(electricity) and promotion of renewable heat technologies like Heat Pumps and Solar Thermal(for heating requirements). According to the proponents of these initiatives, 30% of power in Europe comes from renewables, and this share is expected to touch 50% in a decade. Indian scenario As mentioned earlier, in India, energy is almost entirely carbon-based, across every sector. This is especially true in the case of the industry sector. The government of India has set ambitious targets for renewable energy – 100 GW Solar PV and 75 GW Wind installed capacity by 2022. However, more needs to be done to decarbonize the energy systems faster. That includes replacing fossil fuels with electricity generated using renewable sources, and by extracting and using renewable heat using technologies like Heat Pumps and Solar Thermal systems. Decarbonizing with Heat Pump and Solar Thermal systems Both the ambient heat extraction technologies – Heat Pumps and Solar Thermal systems – have been around for a long time, and are proven and mature from a technology perspective. (Details about how these technologies work can be found here(Heat Pumps) and here(Solar Thermal)). In industrial applications, Heat Pumps and Solar Thermal systems can be highly cost-effective with payback periods as low as 1 year depending on the capacity utilization. These applications have also helped reduce localized pollution for several of Aspiration Energy’s customers, and have led to a significant reduction in carbon footprint by decarbonizing the Heat sources. For example, in the case of one of our customers, we were able to demonstrate more than 50% savings in energy cost and about 50% reduction in CO2 emissions per year by switching to a Heat Pump, as below. Read the entire case study here. Similarly, one of our other customers was able to reduce about 20-25 tonnes of LPG per year by installing a 360 kW online rooftop solar thermal system. (Download the case study here). Conclusion Decarbonization of energy systems is critical for the environment and will have a significant positive bottom-line impact. Decarbonization of electricity by installing Solar and Wind power projects is well known, and it is now time to place more emphasis on decarbonizing Heat by deploying renewable thermal technologies like Heat Pumps and Solar Thermal systems. The climb is steep but would be well worth it.

Blog, Case Studies

Too Good To Be True – Heat Pump Case Study

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\”Too Good to be True\” – That was the reaction of a leading global Trucks Manufacturer, when Aspiration Energy told that replacement of Electric Heaters with Heat Pump will reduce more than 50% of energy consumption for one of its Industrial processes. The Truck Manufacturer was skeptical about Heat Pumps and challenged Aspiration Energy to prove its claims about the energy savings. Aspiration Energy accepted the challenge, installed a Heat Pump at its own cost, and proved how Heat Pumps not only reduce energy consumption for the process by 80,000 kWh/year(53%), but also reduce the carbon foot print by 70,000 kg Co2/year. And the story has a happy ending. The Trucks Manufacturer has ordered more Heat Pumps for installation n some of its other sites. How did Aspiration Energy reduce electricity consumption and Carbon footprint? Download the case study here.

Blog

Certificate Program in Industrial Heating,September 23 & 24,2016 @ IIT Madras

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Aspiration Energy and Indian Institute of Technology, Madras invite you to attend the \”Certificate program in solar heating & heat pumps for Industrial processes\” on September 23 & 24 (Friday & Saturday) at ICSR Building, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. The heating process in Industries are the least monitored because energy professionals consider them as necessary evils and do not see an opportunity to increase efficiency and reduce cost. If you have a manufacturing process with temperature between 50 deg – 150 deg, this certificate program should be attended. The advantages of attending this program : Low Total Cost of Ownership Save money Low payback periods Cut CO2 emissions At the end of the Program, the participant will get a CEP (Certificate Education Program) issued by IIT, Madras. The registration includes a nominal fee of Rs. 5000/ (incl. of taxes) per participant. Kindly register to reserve your place. Only limited seats available! RSVP! Looking forward to meet you! Click here to register! PS: Snapshots of the certificate program held in Hosur on August 19 & 20 Best Regards, Deepa Rajagopal deepa@aspirationenergy.com  

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ASPIRATION ENERGY 24×7 HOT WATER SOLUTIONS

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Aspiration Energy, is a renewable energy services company, focused on Industrial Heating Applications (70-120°C) offering Solar Thermal and Industrial Heat pump solutions. Aspiration Energy has built robust solar heating systems that are even better than what is available in the market today. Aspiration Energy\’s Solar thermal hot water solution assures: constant delivery temperature throughout the day irrespective of the withdrawal rate, thermal energy measurement for accurate assessment of energy saving, unique tank design and circuit design where water is delivered to tank only after attaining the specified temperature up to 85°C. >> Fast Forward to the Solar future>> Aspiration Energy Private Limited || 044-42185301 www.aspirationenergy.com

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