Heat Pumps Today

Info Visit: www.energytrainingnetwork.co.uk www.acrjournal.uk/heat-pumps 17 T R A I N I N G lacking the necessary heat pump expertise to deliver a quality job. Happy heat pump customers were fortunate to have worked with installers who delivered a quality service installing quality heat pumps. Unhappy heat pump customers, regrettably, were those exposed to the rogue installers, who installed heat pump systems to their own distorted quality levels. One can sympathise with a customer who thought they were getting quality green technology but received the opposite. In most of these cases, our research has shown that the badly installed or problematic heat pump systems have a sizing/design related issue. Either the heat pump has been undersized for the property or, the ground array, in the case of ground source heat pumps, has been undersized for the heat pump, with the length of array being insucient and/or the collector diameter is too small. In the worst cases, both were undersized! When a ground array is undersized for a heat pump, which is also undersized for the property it is heating, the compressors will fail prematurely. Replacing a compressor is a temporary fix and comes at a great cost and inconvenience to the customer. The distress caused to a customer when they realise that they have spent a lot of money on an undersized system is immense. What exacerbates this distress is the additional realisation that it is almost impossible to fix a system, without replacing significant parts of it, or in some cases, the entire system. Heat pumps are getting a bad reputation, not because they don’t work properly, but rather because they were not designed or installed properly, which is the cause of them not performing as they should. Common sense? The reader may regard this summary as somewhat elementary and ‘what should be common sense’; but it is surprising how many failed systems are arising, where there is no evidence of a heat loss survey having ever been conducted, a heat loss survey being the starting point of any installation. This clearly indicates a lack of knowledge or understanding of what defines the starting point to such a project and then delivering the heat pump installation to a design which has been born out of the survey. We believe that the issues highlighted with sizing and the lack of accurate heat loss surveys will only deteriorate with the demand from the UK Government, on the renewable energy sector, to install 600,000 heat pumps over the next 5 years, and the shortage of close to 30,000 engineers required to achieve that target. There is a shortage of engineers because the rate at which heat pumps were introduced into the market appears to have far outweighed the rate at which training institutions could modify curriculums to accommodate the rapidly rising demand. There are a growing number of initiatives and a rise in the number of training facilities being established to address this. One of these initiatives is the Energy Training Network which can best be described as an alliance of like-minded individuals and organizations who seek to train existing engineers and new entrants to the renewables sector, in a combination of facilities, using reputable training providers, across the UK. Our aim is to improve the level of knowledge, skill and experience required to consult, design, install, maintain and train in renewables, focussing on Heat Pumps, Solar PV, EV-Chargers and Battery Storage, and related emerging technologies. Training solutions The Energy Training Network provides guidance and training solutions to anyone wanting to work in the renewable energy sector, whether they’re an existing business or engineer upskilling into renewables, or a school/college leaver looking for a career in renewables, or even an engineer looking to add a qualification to their CV for a job. We strive to empower individuals with the correct knowledge and skills to be e•ective and make a real di•erence to the environment, decrease energy consumption, and reduce living costs. We o•er theoretical courses, and a combination of theoretical and practical courses for qualified plumbers, heating engineers and electricians. For oced based sta•, project managers and site managers, who have sucient level of education to be able to understand basic technical terminology, we o•er courses which provide awareness of renewables systems. Our primary objective and key message we want to convey is that we want to train people to an approved standard, so that they understand the specific di•erences between heat pumps and boilers, and the level of design and installation related work required to install a heat pump system properly, to allow the industry to generate more satisfied customers and reduce the number of faulty or badly installed systems. We want to create a renewable generation to increase customer satisfaction and positively influence the overall integrity of the technology being introduced in the heating industry.