On the second day of the 19th Heat Pump Forum, several project developers spoke about heat pump solutions for apartment buildings and neighbourhoods. One such project is located in Bedburg, West Germany. There, a former sugar factory is to be converted into a modern neighbourhood with 1,200 new flats for up to 3,000 residents as well as commercial buildings. Since geothermal energy or river water is not available as a heat source for the heat pump, the German engineering firm PBS Energiesysteme has designed a low-temperature network that draws heat from a large PVT field with 4 MWp and integrates three ice storage tanks - one for each heating centre - When the heat pump draws heat from the storage tank, the water freezes into ice; when it is charged from the thermal side of the PVT collectors, the ice melts. In general, the ice storage tank, which is a latent heat storage tank, has a much higher storage capacity than a hot water storage tank. The feasibility study by PBS Energiesysteme is supported by funding from the Heating Networks 4.0 programme.
Translated from: https://solarthermalworld.org
