Europe’s Heat Pumps Put America’s to Shame | If switching one home to a heat pump improves energy efficiency, why not whole cities?

2 comments

1. Bryn Stole: “In the United States, home heat pumps have been gaining traction (and government subsidies) as highly energy-efficient replacements for gas-fired boilers and furnaces. They vary in size, but most of the units being hyped by environmentalists and installed nationwide measure just a few square feet. In Stockholm’s Hammarbyverket plant, which is by some measures the world’s largest heat-pump plant, each of the seven electric-powered heat pumps is the size of a two-story house. [https://theatln.tc/VtkeCpka](https://theatln.tc/VtkeCpka) 

   “… The argument for heat pumps centers on their efficiency: Because they move warmth around, instead of generating heat directly, heat pumps can be many times more energy efficient than other heaters. In the U.S., heating alone accounts for more than half of the energy used in homes. Heat pumps sized for individual households can slash those emissions dramatically, and since President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, more than 250,000 families have used one of the bill’s tax credits to invest in heat pumps, according to the Treasury Department. The larger heat pumps I saw at the Hammarbyverket plant are similar to the popular air-source household units, but a single heat pump there pushes out enough heat to warm thousands of apartments. And in recent years other European cities, too, have started switching large heating systems, that serve tens of thousands, over to heat pumps.

   “… In Europe, interest in giant heat pumps like those at Hammarbyverket has been growing. The technology ‘has never really gotten traction because gas prices were always too cheap,’ Thomas Nowak, a former secretary general of the European Heat Pump Association, told me last fall. In Europe, only a handful of massive heat pumps, such as those in Stockholm, are in operation, but more have been coming online as district-heating systems move to shut down coal-fired power plants and hit climate targets.

   “… The economic case for replacing furnaces and boilers with massive heat pumps is harder to make when natural gas remains relatively cheap and abundant in the United States. Higher gas prices in Europe, combined with carbon taxes, means the efficiency savings of large heat pumps will pay off far sooner … But several universities with campus-wide steam-heating systems have converted to hot water and installed giant heat pumps, in some cases to replace aging boilers. And for places with the right infrastructure—or for new campuses or other developments that provide their own heat—heat pumps can work.”

   Read more: [https://theatln.tc/VtkeCpka](https://theatln.tc/VtkeCpka) 

2. Vienna/Austria already uses heat pumps for district heating and cooling.
   Recently started a huge geothermal project for district heating too.