At long last, the humble heat pump is exploding in popularity.
“Heat pumps are a few years behind electric vehicles but really deserve similar attention and could deliver very sizable reductions in emissions if we deployed them much more rapidly,” says Jan Rosenow, director of European programs at the Regulatory Assistance Project, an NGO dedicated to the transition to clean energy.
Here’s how heat pumps work, how governments can use them to reduce emissions, and how you can get your hands on one.A heat pump works on the same principle as a refrigerator, which keeps your food cold not by pumping cool air. The heat you feel on the outside of the machine is actually being transferred away. Similarly, a heat pump can cool a building by moving hot air out.
“The air may be relatively cold, but it's transferring heat from that cold air into your home,” says Randal Newton, vice president of engineering of Trane Technologies, which makes heat pumps. “Your refrigerator is cold, and it's still transferring heat into your kitchen from that cold box.”in your backyard. Instead of exchanging heat with the air, a geothermal pump uses plastic pipes buried in the yard to exchange heat with the land itself.
“The easiest way to think about this is like your backyard is a battery,” says Ryan Dougherty, president of the Geothermal Exchange Organization, a trade association that advocates for geothermal heat pumps. “You can draw off that thermal battery in the winter and you can heat your house with the energy that's right there in your yard. And then in the summer, the processes is just reversed: You take heat out of your house and you put it back into the battery.
The downside of a heat pump is that you can’t install one on your own, unless you’re really handy. Whether it uses air or geothermal energy, a heat pump is no more difficult to install than an air conditioner, but you still need a professional. But the upside is that heating and air conditioning companies have been installing these things for years, so it’s just a matter of getting in touch with local businesses for quotes.
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