MITSUBISHI Electric has launched a VRF water heating unit that can provide a significant reduction in CO2 emissions compared to traditional boiler plant, says the company.
The PQFY VRF heat pump boiler comes in two model sizes and points the way towards combined air conditioning and hot water generation for both a wide range of commercial applications and the residential market.
Persimmon Homes, one of the largest house builders in the UK, is currently trialling the PQFY system in a new executive home in Manchester, as part of its investigation into low carbon housing.
The unit is working with a Mitsubishi Electric City Multi air conditioning unit and OSMA underfloor heating, to provide three floors of comfort cooling and domestic heating.
The VRF heat pump boiler can be applied in two basic methods offering either heat pump, or heat pump with heat recovery.
In the heat pump application the system would be dedicated to supplying hot water and Mitsubishi Electric is predicting COPs higher than 3.5 resulting in at least 45% less CO2 emissions when compared to a traditional gas boiler.
“The heat pump boiler generates water at 45°C that is ideal for use with the expanding underfloor heating market,” explains Philip Ord, Mitsubishi Electric’s VRF product manager, who was instrumental in developing the product.
To supply the 65°C storage temperature necessary for sanitary water, a small electric boost heater has been integrated into the storage tank.
With the heat pump providing over 80% of the heating requirement, the unit delivers very high overall efficiency levels.
Heat recovery system
The second application, would be the heat pump with heat recovery system. By using the technology available in a commercial specification City Multi heat recovery system, the PQFY unit heats water with the energy extracted from cooling the building.
In a commercial application with high cooling demand, water could be heated with a COP of over 5.5, offering CO2 emission reductions of over 60% compared to traditional methods.
Mitsubishi Electric believes that these applications, which combine different energy systems to increase energy efficiency whilst minimising waste, have enormous future potential.
The two model sizes currently available offer either 14kW or 25kW of heating capacity with COPs of between 2.71 and 5.48, dependent on the load and ambient condition. Multiple units can be combined on one condensing unit to give up to 75kW from a single system.
As this unit is part of the City Multi family, it can easily be applied with air cooled, water cooled or ground source condensing units. It can also be integrated with a wide range of building management systems.
Mitsubishi Electric
0870 3000 666