Trane claims first 120 deg C heat pump will widen low-carbon potential

Manufacturer Trane claims to have pushed the boundaries for heat pumps with technology that can deliver heat at up to 120 deg C. The firm says heat generated from the Exergy series will enable it to replace oil and gas boilers in industrial process, buildings and district heating and to tap into the growing demand for heat recovery from other processes.

The Exergy series, available in capacities from 30 to 2000 kW can source energy from natural water as well as wastewater or industrial processes, at a temperature range between -20 deg C and 45 deg C, giving access to a wider range of applications than previously.

The company notes that this will provide up to 400 per cent higher efficiency than most fossil-fueled boiler systems.

The new range, which runs on the HFO refrigerant R1234ze, is manufactured in cooperation with Finnish energy specialist Oilon, a company with that claims 60 years of experience in generating heat for domestic and commercial applications.

Erik van Oossanen, portfolio manager at Trane Europe, said: “Communities, buildings and industry generate huge amounts of waste heat that contains valuable energy. With the Exergy range, customers wanting to reduce their carbon footprint and operating costs get new opportunities to extract and reuse this excess energy for clean and energy efficient heating in traditionally carbon-intensive applications”

Amongst the areas where the high capacity heat pumps can be beneficial are: to supplement primary energy with heat recovered from cooling plants; to convert heat from industrial wastewater to use in district heating; as ground-source or air-source heat pumps for heating; and to divert heat from evaporators and cooling towers, which is often released into the environment, to produce heat for industrial processes or space heating.

See the discussion on heat recovery potential in sister magazine RAC in our January issue, out this week