Zero Carbon Homes: Heat Pumps - Coursework Example

Zero Carbon Homes: Heat Pumps Table of Contents Table of Figures 3 Zero Carbon Homes: Heat Pumps 4 Introduction 4Climate change and Energy management 5 Climate change and residential Thermal energy consumption 6 Residential Heat Pumps, Energy Use and Climate Change 6 Home Designing and Energy Efficiency 7 Renewable thermal Technologies 9 Geothermal energy 10 Bio-gas energy 12 Hybrid systems 13 Energy Independence 14 Renewable Heat initiative 14 Bibliography 16 Table of Figures Figure 1shows the passive solar design and how the design can conserve energy. 8 Figure 2 shows the thermal solar energy for home. 10 Figure 3 shows the coupling of geothermal energy to the heat pumps 11 Figure 4 shows the typical anaerobic biogas extraction systems from biological wastes. 12 Zero Carbon Homes: Heat Pumps Introduction As the population of the cities is growing, the human impact on the environment is increasing. Climate change is the result of long termed human impact on the environment. In the modern world, life is considered incomplete without the utilization of electrical energy. Electrical energy is commonly generated by burning fossil fuel resources. Fossil fuel resources are good source of energy; however, fossil fuel resources produce heavy amount of carbon as well as other green house emissions. As the utilization of the fossil fuel resources is increasing, the percentage of green house gases in the atmosphere is increasing. Moreover, emissions from industries and vehicles are another big concern. Residential units are the biggest consumer of energy. A number of power generation units are built to supply continuous power to the residential units. Residential units consume a massive amount of energy. Massive amount of energy is consumed in lighting the house, warming or cooling the house. Renewable energy sources are not efficient sources of energy but also emission free energy. Wind power, solar power, geothermal, hydrodynamic, etc are renewable energy. Renewable heat sources may avoid the massive amount of emission into the atmosphere; however renewable energy sources can provide continuous energy without emitting green house emission. In many countries, governments emphasize on utilizing the renewable energy sources or a mixed system of grid power and renewable energy to lessen the burden on the energy generation units. Climate change and Energy management The Climate of the earth is constantly changing due to the massive use of fossil fuel sources. Coal is considered the most economic yet the dirtiest type of fossil fuel. Fuel oil like kerosene, diesel and gasoline are more enriched with energy than other dirty impurities like sulphur, etc. More than 50 percent of the energy is generated by burning coal (Theccc.org.uk 2014). The more energy is consumed, the more coal is burned to attain an increased amount of power. The more the coal is burned, the more will be the emission produced. The emissions pollute the atmosphere, oceans and thus enter the food chine and directly penetrate into the human body during the process of respiration. Energy management is the proper generation, transmission, use of energy in an efficient manner. The efficient generation refers to the power generation technologies by utilizing efficient power generation methods and combining energy recovery processes to produce as much energy as possible by limiting the use of fuel (Theccc.org.uk 2014). Fossil fuels that are more concentrated give better results as compared to less concentrated fuels. Natural gas is more concentrate fuel as compared to coal or fuel oil. There are many losses during transmission of power. Line losses can be minimized by adopting the technologies that have low line losses. High Voltage DC transmission has low losses as compared to AC transmission line. Such appliances that consume less energy giving the similar results can reduce the energy consumption significantly. Like fluorescent energy saving lamps consume far less energy as compared to incandescent lamps (Gov.uk 2014). In the similar manner, halogen heaters consume less energy as compared to resistive heaters. Climate change and residential Thermal energy consumption A massive amount of energy is consumed in warming up the house. In some bigger apartment buildings, main boilers supply hot water to the radiators that warm up the house. Most boilers are natural gas fired in most building that make an efficient use of energy. However, the energy consumption increases as the external environment temperature changes. Slight increase in temperature may require less energy for space heating; while in order to maintain a drastic difference between the outside and indoor temperatures, a large of energy is required to maintain the temperature. Central Heating systems consume less energy as compared to space heaters (Ergon.com.au 2014). An electric heater with a rated power of 1500 watts would consume 1070 kWh/month, if it remains running for 24 hours a day. The power consumption drops as the power rated power of the heater lowers. The central heating system with heat sinks would consume about 100kWh/month to 500kWh/month for more efficiency as that of the electric heater running for the similar time period. On the other hand, the heat pump would consume 1000 kWh/month to 2000 kWh/month for the space heating of similar size and similar time period (Edfenergy.com 2014). Residential Heat Pumps, Energy Use and Climate Change Residential Heat pumps consume massive amount of energy. On the other hand, some energy gets lost with being utilized in the heat sinks. As, the energy consumption in the heat pumps increases the emission produced to generate energy for the heat pumps also increase (Gov.uk 2013). Most of the heat pumps utilize the vapour compression cycle that is mostly electric motor power. However, some heat pumps can attain power from the gas engines. Residential units may utilize the air to air heat pumps, air to water heat pumps, water to water heat pumps and water to air heat pumps. Typical air conditioning units are air to air heat pump units. Air to water heat pumps are commonly used for space heating and supplying sanitary hot water. These pumps can work well even at temperature down to -25oC. Water to water heat pumps utilizes the available hot water sources (Technology Roadmap: Energy-efficient Buildings: Heating and Cooling Equipment, 2014, p. 16). It is estimated that more than 50% of the energy consumed in a residential units is to maintain the temperature. The total residential energy consumption was about 92 quadrillion BTU in 2011 and the total consumptions in all sectors is about 524 quadrillion BTU. It can be assumed that nearly 46 quadrillion BTUs are consumed by heat pumps to control the indoor temperature. If one fourth of this amount is attained by renewable energy sources, 12 quadrillion BTU of energy can be saved. Natural gas produced the least amount of carbon emission and coal produces the most. Natural gas produces 117 pounds of carbon emission per million BTU of energy (Eia.gov 2014). Home Designing and Energy Efficiency The design and material use may significantly reduce the energy consumption. A house should be properly designed to achieve zero home standards. The use of proper materials significantly reduces the space heating cost and lighting requirements. The use of passive solar design not only reduces the lighting requirements during day but also help the structure to maintain a constant temperature during all seasons. During summer, the passive solar shades prevent the direct sun light to penetrate the structure directly and during winter season, the sun directly warms up the structure (Passivesolar.sustainablesources.com 2014). Figure 1shows the passive solar design and how the design can conserve energy. Image source: http://www.greenenergytimes.net/ The use of insulation in the walls of the structure prevents the transfer thermal energy and thus there is minimal loss in the thermal energy of the structure. However, the normal glass panes are unable prevent the thermal loss. In order to reduce the thermal loss through the glass doors and windows, it is important to use the insulated the glass windows that can isolate the outside temperature with the inside temperature. A double glass halogen filled glass windows are designed to minimize the transfer of thermal energy through the windows. Spray form insulation is better than normal form insulation. Better designing can manage the energy significantly while increase the energy efficiency (Passivesolar.sustainablesources.com 2014). Passive solar designs can 50% energy being utilized for lighting and 40% of energy being utilized for temperature controlling. The technology can immensely reduce the green house gas emissions. Renewable thermal Technologies Renewable technologies have significantly low impact on the environment. Renewable thermal technologies have been in use for many years; however, with the advent of fossil fuel resources, people tend to become more diverted towards the fossil fuel resources due to the large heating capacity and some other benefits. Besides some advantages of fossil fuel, the drawbacks of the increased fossil fuel resources are worse. Now governments are emphasizing and encouraging the use of renewable technologies at residential units and on commercial units. Solar thermal energy Solar thermal energy captures the solar heat energy in a circulating liquid. The temperature of the liquid gradually increases. The liquid can be fed to the heat pump to deliver it to the heat sink or a radiator inside the house to warm up the house. The heating mechanism is efficient enough to replace the conventional heat pumps or fuel or electric heating mechanisms (Trimarchi 2014). However, the parameters of the solar heat energy capturing mechanism should be altered as the heating requirements alter. For residential units water is considered the best energy capturing a transmitting medium as it is cheap, can be replaced easily and can be further used for other purposes (Sunwatersolar.com 2014). Figure 2 shows the thermal solar energy for home. Image source: http://easttechrenewables.co.uk/ Solar thermal energy mechanism could be as simple as putting a spool of plastic PVC pipe over the roof of the house and passing the water through the tube. During day, the water circulating through the PVC tube would gain enough temperature to be directly utilized for bathing and washing. On the other hand, the water gets pasteurized as the temperature of the water is increased. The solar thermal energy could be as elaborated as utilizing the glass enclosed metallic solar heating tubes that have higher efficiency as compared to the conventional methods. Solar geysers are available that can be coupled with the heat pumps to provide an uninterrupted solar thermal energy to the heating system (Sunwatersolar.com 2014). Solar thermal energy is also used for energy generation; it can be couples with the community supplied thermal energy to be supplied to the residential units to limit the green house emission. Solar thermal energy can reduce the 60% energy consumption and thus reduce the carbon emission up to 60%. Geothermal energy Geothermal energy captures the earth’s energy and uses it for heating the homes. As the temperature inside the soil remains to be constant, no matter it is winter or summer, the earth’s energy can be harvested in any season. In winters it can be used to warm up the home and in summer it can be used to cool the home. Under 5 meters of the surface, the temperature at most places of the earth remains between 20-25 degrees on the Celsius scale. However, at some places, it is required to dig a longer trench for better results. The simplest method to attain the geothermal energy is dig a trench of adequate length and width and burry a spool of rust resistive paints metallic pipe or plastic PVC pipe and circulate the water through the pipes or couple the system with the heat pump (Renewableenergyworld.com 2014). Figure 3 shows the coupling of geothermal energy to the heat pumps Image source: www.epa.gov Geothermal grounds can provide with immensely high temperatures. At some places of the earth tectonic plates lie just under the ground. Such a ground can have temperature ranging from 50-600 degrees on the Celsius scale. It can be noticed at some place the rushing out of the hot water from the ground that is due to the interaction of ground water with the tectonic plates. Geothermal energy is harvested in Iceland and some other places of the world. In Iceland, geothermal energy is used for space heating and producing tropical vegetables and fruits by maintaining a tropical temperature (Renewableenergyworld.com 2014). Geothermal energy reduces carbon emission up to 50% if the system is compared to conventional gas boilers. The system can reduce the carbon emission up to 80% is comparison to conventional air-conditioning system. However a person can save 100% on energy bills if he is entitled to attain benefit from renewable heat initiative (Icax.co.uk 2014). Bio-gas energy Biogas energy is gained from the biological wastes. Bacteria eat the biological wastes and produce the biogas that has higher ratio of methane. It burns like natural gas. The sewerage waste and animal wastes can be fermented to attain biogas. With some filtration and refining the biogas can easily replace the natural gas in conventional systems. The sewerage systems make methane emissions and methane is also a green house gas. It is a better option to convert the methane into energy. Carbon dioxide is also produced as the byproduct while burning the biogas for attaining the energy out of the biogas. Carbon dioxide can be controlled by growing plants that can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide by absorbing atmospheric carbon dioxide during the process of photo synthesis. In this process plants combine water and carbon dioxide to produce glucose as their food (I-sis.org.uk 2014). Figure 4 shows the typical anaerobic biogas extraction systems from biological wastes. Image sources: (I-sis.org.uk 2014) Biogas can be directly attained from the home sewerage system by making the sanitation tank air tight and extracting biogas out of it. It can also be extracted at the community sewerage service where large amounts of wastes can be collected to extract the sewerage gas or biogas. An industrial process to produce biogas uses biological wastes from plant like rice husk or other high cellulose having wastes. The biomass is fermented by adding bacterial culture in airtight silos. The bacteria eat the waste and convert the waste in biogas. The left over liquid is rich in biotic nutrients and can be used as the bio fertilizer (I-sis.org.uk 2014). A biogas system can reduce the energy bill up to 100% and reduce the green house emission up to 45%. Bio gas do produces the carbon emission but may reduce the other green house emissions. Hybrid systems Hybrid systems combine two or more than two systems to conserve energy. Hybrid technology gives access to more than one technology for a similar process. In case of space heating by using natural gas, both natural gas and biogas can be used that makes the system hybrid. It is better to run the thermal system on biogas; however, in shortage of biogas, the natural gas can replace the biogas in the system (I-sis.org.uk 2014). The other method is to combine the solar thermal energy with the natural gas or biogas system. As solar energy is mostly associated with the day light and as the day light reduces the energy attained from the solar thermal system also reduces. It is better to couple the technology with the natural gas or biogas to supply the thermal energy at night. Bother the system can be integrated with the home space heating distribution system or can replace the conventional heat pumps. Solar and wind technology can also be coupled together. Solar energy can supply with the thermal energy and wind energy can provide power to circulate the warm water inside the radiators. However, it is not the proper hybrid system as if one system fails to provide power; the other is unable to cope with the system. Energy Independence Renewable energy sources not only give carbon free energy but also give energy independence. Besides many environmental benefits, the utilization of the renewable energy require less maintenance, no fuel costs and continues power supply for many years. On the other hand, the conservation of energy is important not only to save a large amount on energy bills but also to reduce the impacts of personal energy use on the environment. Renewable Heat initiative Renewable heat Initiative (RHI) is the unique financial support program on long term basis for generating and utilizing the renewable heat from renewable heat sources. In 2011, it was officially launched to provide financial support to the industry and private and public sector organizations. Renewable Heat Initiative now covers the residential units also. It provides financial support to the home owners. The home owners can take advantage from the scheme from mid of 2014. RHI promotes and encourages the utilization of Renewable heat sources like solar geothermal, etc in order to replace the conventional fossil fuel heating. RHI financial support help is reducing the impact of the fossil fuel resources and increase the usage of renewable technologies. The scheme at this stage only provides financial, management and paper support to the heat technologies. Some of the major features of the RHI are: Promote and increase the use of biogas boilers, solar thermal, ground sourced heat pumps and biogas combustion. Promotes usage of Air water heat pumps Using low budget technologies and lower the number of parts as much as possible. Renewable technologies are good for the environment. Governments should divert their attention to encourage the use of green technologies. It is also important to promote the conservation of energy and energy management tactics to reduce the impact on the environment. Moreover, it is important to reduce the use of fossil fuel resources as fossil fuel resources are no l9onger considered a vital source of energy. Geothermal, solar, wind, biomass, etc are the renewable energy that are free from carbon emissions. The climate of earth has risen from 1 to 2 degrees on the Celsius scale due to the emissions of green house emission. Green house emission trap the solar radiations and thus warm up the climate gradually. The larger the concentration of green house gases in the atmosphere, the warmer will be the atmosphere. Renewable heat initiative is a good method to reduce the impact of fossil fuel resources on the environment. Bibliography Edfenergy.com. 2014. Measuring energys contribution to climate change | EDF Energy. [online] Available at: https://www.edfenergy.com/energyfuture/the-energy-gap-climate-change [Accessed: 7 Mar 2014]. Eia.gov. 2014. How much energy is consumed in the world by each sector? - FAQ - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). [online] Available at: http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=447&t=1 [Accessed: 7 Mar 2014]. Eia.gov. 2014. 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