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Date today:   05 Feb, 2012 06:15:54 AM
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Ask the experts: renewable energy
By Martyn Bridges | 01 Sep, 2010
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As part of renewable energy month, Greenbuild News has put together a panel of experts to answer your questions. The first question, from a local authority, is answered by Martyn Bridges, director of marketing and technical support at Worcester, Bosch Group.

We have a large number of off-gas social housing in a rural area. At present the homes have oil-fired boilers but they will need replacing soon. Would a heat pump be a good alternative? Any other solutions we should consider?

Heat pumps have been used as a replacement for oil-fired boilers, however the following aspects of the system and the dwelling would need to be considered:
  • is the insulation of the property good and virtually to newbuild standard, or at least to that of a building built within the last 10 years?
  • is the heating system sized sufficiently to be run on the low temperatures that a heat pump runs at (typically 50°C) and give the room temperatures required in the depths of winter?
Quite frequently we find that neither of these conditions can be met and the heat pump installed is incurring high electricity running costs due to this. Consequently our research has shown that the most cost-effective replacement for an oil-fired boiler is another oil-fired boiler, particularly with the advances being made in biofuels. With waste cooking oil making up, say, 50% of the oil mix, oil-fired boilers may be seeing something of a renaissance as with this mixture there are certainly comparable with heat pumps in terms of CO 2 emissions.

If you have a renewable energy question to ask the experts, please email lucy@greenbuildnews.co.uk.





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