21 September 2022
|
Dr Manju Mishra
Ground source heat pump specialist Kensa Group says it was honoured to present its work on ‘Integrated Energy Systems and Networked Heat Pumps’ at the 2022 Technical Symposium run by CIBSE, and have its findings published in a peer-reviewed whitepaper.
The paper is available for CIBSE members to download and the key points are summarised here in a blog.
Dr Manju Mishra, SAP specialist at Kensa and co-author of the paper, said: “Our work aims to break down the perceived barriers to the widescale electrification of heat and showcase that Networked Heat Pumps can achieve decarbonisation goals at scale for the lowest cost. We were therefore delighted to have our findings published by CIBSE and recognised by highly-respected peers.
“It is one thing to make low-carbon heating technologies available, but it is entirely a different matter to achieve their installation in homes and their adoption for use on a mass scale. Our work at Kensa is not just theorising – we are developing models based on real-life urban communities – and providing a blueprint that can be rolled out across the country.”
Over the last 18 months, Kensa has delivered an extensive body of evidence-based work and a communications campaign exploring the potential of street-by-street installations of ground source heat pump technology in communities. The findings were written in a paper by Karl Drage and Dr Manju Mishra which was presented to CIBSE and heavily peer-reviewed in a process that took six months.
Now industry experts have confirmed Kensa’s conviction that Networked Heat Pumps and Ambient Heat Networks offer an effective solution to help the UK achieve its heat decarbonisation goals and scale up to meet the ambitious heat pump deployment targets of 600,000 per year by 2028, as set by the government.
Whilst Ambient Heat Networks are not a new concept and smaller systems have been installed successfully, so far this is still not a mainstream solution.
Kensa Group CEO, Dr Matthew Trewhella, said: “An integrated approach using networked ground source heat pumps can deliver community-wide sustainable heating and cooling to accelerate progress on climate change in the UK.
“By installing and funding the deployment of networked heat pumps via an infrastructure that mimics the gas network, net-zero carbon can be achieved for the lowest societal cost and electrical grid impact, with significantly less investment than you think.”
