As climate and energy security concerns accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels, the demand for “giant” commercial heat pumps is “exploding” across Europe.
Thousands of times more powerful than their domestic kin, the mammoth commercial devices are increasingly on the radar of municipalities looking to end their dependence on fossil fuels, reports the British Broadcasting Corporation. The trend is particularly marked in Europe, where the desire to sever remaining gas links with Russia runs high, leading to a rush for “bigger and beefier heat pump systems that can power entire towns.”
German firm MAN Energy Solutions has developed a 48-megawatt heat pump that exemplifies the immense scales on offer. Using a Montreal Protocol-compliant carbon dioxide refrigerant, the device can generate temperatures up to 150°C and is ideal for district heating systems, where one centralized energy source distributes heat to multiple buildings or structures.
The Danish port city of Esbjerg recently plugged itself into two such pumps, which will use the compressed heat from a small amount of seawater to send more hot water through a district heating system that serves 27,000 households.
“The demand for district heating is exploding,” says MAN ES business development lead Raymond Decorvet.
The industrial heat pump market was valued at US$8.7 billion in 2022, and a compound annual growth rate of 7.8% is expected to push the market size to US$15.88 billion by 2029, Global Newswire reported in April.
When chained together, as they increasingly are, commercial heat pumps can be truly gigantic. Stockholm’s district heating system, which delivers 215 megawatts courtesy of seven linked heat pumps, is considered the largest heat pump network in the world.
“There are many other examples of heat pump-powered district heating systems springing up,” writes BBC. A three-pump, 55-megawatt system in Vienna, which will supply 56,000 households with all their heating and cooling needs, will use treated municipal wastewater when it goes live this fall. Regional utility Wien Energie plans to add three more heat pumps to the chain by 2027, doubling the system’s capacity to 110 megawatts.
A 60-megawatt system that likewise uses heat from wastewater is in the works for Hamburg. And watch out for big doings in Finnish capital Helsinki, writes BBC, where “a plan is afoot to construct a gargantuan heat pump system with a total capacity of 500 megawatts.” Like the MAN ES pumps used in Esbjerg, it will run on seawater, a virtually limitless resource in the port city.
