Got this brainstorm or at least brainsneeze:
You get more bang for your buck in electric heating by using a
heat pump. I think you get three watts of heating for every one
watt of electricity it takes to run the mechanism. Heat pumps can
be like an air conditioner run backwards, it cools the outside air
but heats the inside or another variation is using buried water pipes
which picks up heat from underground and pumps it into the house.
I was thinking what if you powered a heat pump with solar cells.
Wouldn't you in effect be increasing the output of the cells if you
use them to power a heat pump? If you have say, 10,000 watts of
solar cells going into a heat pump and you get 30,000 watts of heat
it looks like you get an effective jump in power efficiency from, say,
20 % to 60%. 10,000 watts of heat is about 30,000 BTU so
30,000 watts of heat would be nearly 100,000 BTU's of heat.
What do you think, all you engineer types out there?
Originally posted by sonhouseGot this brainstorm or at least brainsneeze:
Got this brainstorm or at least brainsneeze:
You get more bang for your buck in electric heating by using a
heat pump. I think you get three watts of heating for every one
watt of electricity it takes to run the mechanism. Heat pumps can
be like an air conditioner run backwards, it cools the outside air
but heats the inside or another variation is us ...[text shortened]... at would be nearly 100,000 BTU's of heat.
What do you think, all you engineer types out there?
You get more bang for your buck in electric heating by using a heat pump. I think you get three watts of heating for every one watt of electricity it takes to run the mechanism. Heat pumps can be like an air conditioner run backwards, it cools the outside air but heats the inside or another variation is using buried water pipes which picks up heat from underground and pumps it into the house. I was thinking what if you powered a heat pump with solar cells. Wouldn't you in effect be increasing the output of the cells if you use them to power a heat pump? If you have say, 10,000 watts of solar cells going into a heat pump and you get 30,000 watts of heat it looks like you get an effective jump in power efficiency from, say, 20 % to 60%. 10,000 watts of heat is about 30,000 BTU so 30,000 watts of heat would be nearly 100,000 BTU's of heat. What do you think, all you engineer types out there?
Originally posted by sonhouseWhat is the efficiency for changing heat into electricity or the chemical potential energy of a battery? That is, can you get better than 33% efficiency changing the heat from the pump to usable energy?
Got this brainstorm or at least brainsneeze:
You get more bang for your buck in electric heating by using a
heat pump. I think you get three watts of heating for every one
watt of electricity it takes to run the mechanism. Heat pumps can
be like an air conditioner run backwards, it cools the outside air
but heats the inside or another variation is us ...[text shortened]... at would be nearly 100,000 BTU's of heat.
What do you think, all you engineer types out there?
Looks like it's been done.
http://www.cogeneration.net/solar_electric_heat_pump.htm
Originally posted by AThousandYoungHey, thanks for the link. It didn't cover my idea exactlly but it did
What is the efficiency for changing heat into electricity or the chemical potential energy of a battery? That is, can you get better than 33% efficiency changing the heat from the pump to usable energy?
Looks like it's been done.
http://www.cogeneration.net/solar_electric_heat_pump.htm
prove the point that I COULD use solar power to power a heat pump
to get more efficient heat generation than simply feeding the power
generated by the solar panels to a regular electric heater.