Heat Batteries:

Increasing the ROI on solar, heat pumps & CHP

Reducing fuel poverty
Andrew.Bissell@Sunamp.co.uk
0795 774 8445
All Energy Stand B21

Is ROI even the right measure?

What about emotion?

What about fuel poverty?

The Scottish Government have pledged to ensure that by November
2016, so far as is reasonably practicable, people are not living in fuel
poverty in Scotland.
Between 2012 and 2013 fuel poverty increased by 4 percentage points
from 35.2% to 39.1%. This represents an increase of around 100,000
households from the previous year, reaching 940,000 in 2013.
The main causes are a combination of poor energy efficiency of the
dwelling, low disposable household income and the high price of
domestic fuel.
The Progress Update on the Fuel Poverty Statement states that for every
5% increase in energy prices then as many as 46,000 households in
Scotland (2%) are pushed into fuel poverty, all else being equal.
Of the three main policy areas affecting fuel poverty, two of them ie
household income and energy regulation, are matters reserved to the UK
Government, while energy efficiency is a matter devolved to the Scottish
Government.
We are leading the Local Energy Challenge Fund project Reducing Fuel
Poverty: Heat Storage Innovation with Housing Association partners

Heat Battery: Storage Innovation

Very energy dense (around 4 times hot water)

Novel, inexpensive, safe Phase Change Materials (PCMs)

Modular packaging for scalable capacity & easy install

Lego-like

Product range with multiple capacities & functions

PCMs use latent heat to store & release heat (melting & crystallizing)
Developed with University of Edinburgh
Same basis as re-useable handwarmers, packaged as a system unit

SunampPV: bridges between on-building PV and hot water needs

SunampStack: large capacity heat storage
High storage capacity in a small space deals with intermittency

Integrate with existing heating and hot water circuits

Ideal for retrofit upgrades to use local renewable heat

Disruptive energy-dense storage

Disrupting Hot Water Tanks
When high energy density heat
storage is the key need:
Beats hot water tanks with 4x
better energy density
Allows to physically fit more
storage
Devices proven in field trials
Products now launched in HVAC
market in UK

Disrupting Electric Batteries

Wherever the final use of stored
electrical energy is heat:
Beats lithium ion batteries for
home energy storage with a 2x
lower cost
Energy density beats lithium ion
SunampPV product delivers
30x the power density of lithium
battery home energy storage
(yes even Tesla!)

Useable Water
Energy Tank

Heat
Battery

Advantage
over Water

Useable Lithium Heat

Advantage
Energy Ion
Battery over Lithium

$/kWh

$150

$150

Equivalent

$/kWh

$300

$150

2x

Wh/L

13.5

54

4x

W/L

10

300

30x

Wh/kg

23

60

>2.5x

Wh/L

35

60

~2x

SunampPV vs Powerflow Unvented 90 litre cylinder

Sunamp 7kWh Heat Battery vs Tesla Powerwall Daily 7 kWh

Why do we even need Heat Storage?

CHP
Solar Thermal
Solar PV
Heat Pumps
Biomass
Waste Heat
Off-peak Elec.
..

energy

Need to time-shift from when energy is available to when it is needed

Intermittent input

Heat storage

energy

Controlled output
hot water
heating

time

time

Solar PV on homes
PV going on 1000 housing
association homes in concert with
Local Energy Challenge Fund
Delivered by Edison Energy using a
funded PV model (FIT + funder)
Solar PV will provide free electrical
energy to tenants
30 50% is likely to be used by
tenants
Saving them 100 150 per year
BUT the remainder (50% 70%)
would be lost to the grid
SunampPV designed to solve this

SunampPV solution

Excess electrical production

diverted and stored as heat

SunampPV

Excess solar PV electricity not lost

Diverted and stored in SunampPV heat battery
SunampPV is very compact so easily fits homes
Designed to work with combi-boilers
Use up to 75% less per year for hot water
A further 100 - 150 saving per year
Up to 300 saving with oil/LPG combi/electric

Combi-boiler
Bypassed most of the time

Up to 75% of
annual hot
water FREE

Air Source Heat Pump and Sunamp

Time-shifting the electrical energy used by heat pumps
Combining the benefits of:

Off-peak Economy 2000 or E-10 electricity (up to 50% cheaper)

Heat pumping (up to 3x the heat output of the electricity input)

Proven in 18 months trial in Housing Association:

45% - 60% saving in annual heating bills when replacing:
Electricity only used
when cheap (off-peak)

Solid fuel: 60% saving

Night storage heaters: 45% saving
Gas central heating: 50% saving

Heat stored
to meet
future need

Heat Pump

Heat used on
demand
when needed

Sunamp Stack

Central Heating

Instant Hot Water

mCHP: ICE, Fuel Cell, Other

Range of heat:electricity ratios give different economics

ICE around 3:1

Fuel Cell up to 1:1
ORC and Stirling usually more than 10:1

Using gas-powered micro-Combined Heat and Power

Electricity and heat
24/7 at slow rate

Converts natural gas super-efficiently to electricity and heat

Operates on slow and steady principle low power, 24/7
Sunamp heat batteries match this to periods of use

Heat stored to meet

later peak need

Aim to cover
household
baseload
electrical use
Feed in Tarrif
eligible

Sunamp

Heat
used on
demand

Central Heating

Wall Mounted

Instant Hot Water

ICE mCHP enhanced ROI example

Table 4: Effect of Sunamp heat store and intelligent control system on annual run hours
Design heat loss of dwelling, [kW]
Heat storage capacity, [kWh]

12.0

16.0

12

12

Annual estimated mCHP run hours

1,607

3,724

3,815

3,986

1,657

3,986

4,087

4,280

Electricity generated, [kWh]

1,607

3,724

3,815

3,986

1,657

3,986

4,087

4,280

Feed-In-Tariff payment at 13.24p/kWh,

[/y]
50% Export payment at 4.77p/kWh,
[/y]
50% Displaced in dwelling at 12p/kWh

213

493

505

528

213

528

541

567

38

89

91

95

38

95

97

102

96

223

229

239

96

239

245

257

Total, [/y]

347

805

825

862

347

862

883

926

----

458

478

515

----

515

536

579

Additional revenue with Sunamp store,

[/y]

Enhanced run-hours increases FIT and displaces more imported electricity

Adding storage:
Pays back in <4 years
Enhances life-time ROI by 8,000

Reduction of stop/starts may give additional reduced maintenance benefit

We are looking for active partner engagement

Fuel Cell + ASHP + Sunamp + District Heat

Use a gas-powered fuel-cell micro-Combined Heat and Power
High electricity to heat ratio
Electricity generated is also used to power a heat pump

Overall we should get 1.5 to 1.8 times the heat out as gas in

Well develop and test this at Newcarron Court, a Castle Rock

Edinvar sheltered housing in Falkirk with 28 apartments
under the Local Energy Challenge Fund
Electricity and heat
24/7 at slow rate

Heat
stored to
meet
evening/
night
need

Heat Pump

Group
Heating
Loop

Heat
used on
demand

Sunamp Stacks

Sunamp Heat
Interface Unit

In plant room

Per Apartment

Central Heating

Instant Hot Water

Range of Solutions
No one single solution fits all buildings. We are developing a pick one from
each of column A, B, C approach to maximise benefits delivered.

A
B
C

mCHP

PV

mCHP
B

PV
Heat Pump

SunampPV

Off-Peak Tariff
SunampStack
Resistance Heat

Off-Peak Tariff

Find out more at All Energy

Stand B21
Andrew.Bissell@Sunamp.co.uk
0795 774 8445