Installation figures for compression heat pumps are steeply going up both nationally and internationally. In Austria, over 60,000 heat pumps were installed in 2022, representing a market growth of 60 percent compared to 2021. Predominantly, compression heat pumps are used for space heating in private residential buildings using outside air as the heat source. Despite the huge potential of applying heat pumps in existing multi-story residential buildings, in industry and commerce, as well as in local and district heating networks, these applications are still virtually nonexistent. The background to this fact is that, on the one hand, specific product developments are needed to cope with operating conditions that are significantly different compared to single family homes, and on the other hand, there is a lack of standards regarding different heat sources and their system integration. It is interesting to note that there are further promising heat pump technologies, such as rotating, thermoacoustic and thermally driven heat pumps suitable for these areas of application.
The present issue of the magazine “nachhaltige technologien” gives insight into pilot projects using compression and thermally driven heat pumps and reports on the state of development of rotating and thermoacoustic heat pumps.