Abstract
During the recent years in Finland, there has been a
clear trend that ground source heat pumps are the most
widely used main heating source in new detached houses.
In addition, other heat pumps have been installed as a
supporting heat source and/or to provide cooling. Similar
trend cannot be seen in new apartment buildings but heat
pumps could be utilized more widely also there.
Going towards nearly zero-energy buildings (nZEBs) is a
new opportunity for heat pumps. The nZEB concepts often
combine passive structural solutions and renewable energy
production. This paper analyses life-cycle costs (LCCs)
of different heat pump based nZEB concepts for a Finnish
new detached house and a new apartment building. The
concepts included different heat pumps without and with
solar systems. For the apartment building, district
heating based concepts were also included as a reference.
For both building types, the LCCs were the smallest with
the ground source heat pumps (GSHPs) followed by the
air-to-water heat pumps. For almost all concepts, the
LCCs were bigger for the solar included concepts. The
economic order of the solutions did not change when the
results were sensitized but the GSHPs were proven to be
the most economic alternatives.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 396-402 |
| Journal | Energy and Buildings |
| Volume | 150 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Sept 2017 |
| MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Keywords
- Heat pump
- Nearly zero-energy building (nZEB)
- Life-cycle costs
- Residential building
- Finland
- Case study
