Heat pumps in commercial buildings

A heat pump moves heat rather than burning fuel. For every unit of electricity it uses it delivers several units of heat, and how many depends on the temperature it has to reach.

Because electricity costs more per unit than gas, a heat pump only cuts your bill if it is efficient enough to close that gap. In a building with large radiators and modest flow temperatures it can. In a building designed around a hot boiler it often cannot without other work first.

It suits buildings with an ageing heating system due for replacement anyway, buildings with a carbon commitment, and buildings where the fabric is already reasonable.

It suits you less as a pure cost saving exercise. Commercial payback is frequently twenty years or more, and we would rather say that here than after you have paid for a survey.

• -The flow temperature the building needs, which depends on emitters and fabric.
• -Spare electrical import capacity, because a heat pump adds load. This is a different question from whether you can export solar.
• -Space for the external unit, and noise limits at the boundary.
• -Whether the existing plant is at the end of its life, which is what usually makes the case.

The figures Meridians models with. Your building replaces them with its own data as soon as we have it.

Installed costProvisional

from 700 to 1,400 per kW thermal

Provisional, scaled from domestic installed costs rather than commercial proposals.

Seasonal efficiency

2.3 to 3.4 units of heat per unit of electricity

Energy Saving Trust field trial across 742 monitored installations.

The cost figure above is provisional. It is scaled from domestic data rather than taken from commercial proposals, so treat it as an indication rather than a price.

Cost leads with the low end. Payback leads with the longer one.

The card a client sees, rendered by the application itself.

• -The pump is sized to the old boiler rather than to the heat loss, so it is oversized and runs badly.
• -Import capacity is not checked, and the connection becomes the largest line in the quote.
• -It is sold on a payback that assumed a laboratory efficiency rather than a field one.
• -Fabric work that would have let the building run cooler is skipped, so the pump works harder for the whole of its life.

Replacing fossil heating changes the modelled carbon and energy use of a building, so it can move an EPC rating.

What the minimum standard requires

• Insulation
• MEES and EPC compliance