The development of sustainable, renewable energy resources to help combat global warming and climate change has never been more important. They are an alternative to the combustion of traditional fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas and the associated pollution caused by these.
Renewable energy is thought of as energy which can be replenished within a human lifetime and which causes no long term damage to our environment.
The sun is a source of clean FREE nuclear energy. It supports the other alternative, renewable energy technologies by heating our planet and the air that surrounds us. It also promotes the growth of organic matter through photosynthesis.

Ground Source

There are three ways that energy can be extracted from the ground as shown below: The correct design of the heat pump system will ensure that as heat is extracted from the ground it will be replaced or renewed by heat from the surrounding ground and further solar radiation.

In a horizontal collector lengths of pipe are buried underground to a depth of around 1 metre. At this depth there is a reliable temperature of up to 10 degrees C all year round. Compact collectors work in a similar way and are a good solution if the property in question has enough land to accommodate these collectors.
An alternative to these would be a vertical collector. This would require a bore hole, or two, to be drilled to a depth of between 60 and 200 metres into which is inserted the vertical collector. This minimizes the amount of land required for the collector.

The technology inside a heat pump unit is very similar to a domestic refrigerator which extracts heat from food. Employing the principles of thermodynamics, a water and glycol mixture is circulated around the collector system extracting heat from the ground. As this low grade heat enters the heat pump unit it causes the refrigerant in the evaporator to turn into a gas. This is passed through a compressor which causes the temperature to rise significantly. The hot gas moves to the condenser unit where as it condenses back to a liquid the latent energy is released through a heat exchanger into the domestic heating system.

The diagram below shows how this works:

Air and Water Source These heat pumps work in a very similar way to the ground source version except that the heat is either extracted from the air or from a lake or river. Air source heat pumps are becoming very popular because they do not require any land. They can be used in reverse to extract heat from inside a building and offer cooling in warmer weather. Installation costs are also usually lower. Due to the lower operating temperature, for maximum efficiency, a heat pump is best used with under floor heating although oversized radiators are also an option. Contact us to see if heat pumps can work as an alternative for you.