Proving Efficiency and performance (Scop) or (cop)
With all this cold weather at the moment, Im seeing and hearing of so many horror story's about Ashp and Gshp costing a-lot to run or not heating their houses to design temperatures.
Why are these installers not being held responsible for their installation?? These Installations are not performing to the Scop (seasonal coefficient performance) that they promote to the customer stating this heatpump can do x..y and z
But what if your installer can prove his previous installs are performing above and beyond expectations, they are held accountable for their installation and they truly are trying to squeeze every bit of efficiency out of their systems.
We offer all our customers the opportunity to include 'Open Energy Monitoring', this shows us their energy usages, there performances, their Cop/ Scop (seasonal co efficient performance) or in layman's terms how much electric to heat generated they are using. How their Units are reacting to certain Weather conditions, Or if they are Under performing ,We can see if there is any cycling happening, or if there unit is running not at the desired temperatures or outputs we predicted or designed for.
This in Return gives us a better insight into the Heat pumps usage but also how its reacting and how we can improve every installation.The information this provides us with is paramount to understanding, and getting the best of any heatpump installation.
Because now as a company we are not guessing or giving excuses about poor performance, We are being held accountable for a top class install and the efficency and performances are clear to see and are easily monitored and proven.
There is no more need for guess work and do things by hear say or rules of thumb or follow a one size fits all schmatic
All the maths, the physics, the hydronics, the correct system design knowledge and information is all out there and the industry needs to step up and give their customers what they deserve.
Here at Custom Renewables that is our aim with every installation.
The importance of a good installer
I am currently getting more and more phone calls, asking me to take a look at their newly installed heat pump, which I am more than happy to do every time, taking my time to optimise settings explain to the customer how the heat pump works, how to set up the weather compensation, the correct control strategy and any recommendations I have on their system.
Most of these phone calls are mainly due to their high electric bills in this cold weather, what I'm confronted with on most occasions is poorly installed installations.
I don't think this should reflect on the installer itself, not all the time. It should reflect on the industry and the lack of proper training and good engineers in the industry. Especially now we are pushing more towards heat pumps and trying to move away from gas boilers and keeping efficiency at the forefront of our minds.
I wouldn't be where I am today without the types of leading industry training from Heat Geek or Northampton Academy teaching correct system design especially for low temperature systems and heat pumps that run at the lower difference of temperature of 5deg. The importance of getting flow rates correct for the perfect transfer of heat and kilowatt exchange.
Set up and commissioning of a Heat pump is also key to any installation and I see Cop (coefficient performance) of less than 2 in a-lot of these I go out too just because the weather compensation is set way to high and there are third party controls switching the heat pump on/off or there pipe work is undersized and there heat pump is struggling to keep up with the heat loss.