Talking AWHP with LG’s Senior Researcher : The AWHP and the European Market

All the projects that I have participated in have been precious experiences to me, and helped me be who I am today. But, if I had to mention one, I would say development of high-temperature AWHP products, which I participated in for the longest period of time.
It was a newly developed project, which used Two stage cascade refrigeration cycle opposed to single refrigeration cycle. I could gain a lot of experience from the development and mass-production of AWHP product to field issues, which helped me progress a lot in my career.
Furthermore, I could expand my experience about product’s cycle through development of waste heat recovery systems, heat pumps that can switch air source and water source, and gas boiler hybrid systems etc. by application of AWHP.

When I joined Compressor Team, I was in charge of Chinese market; at that time Chinese government offered large-scale subsidies on AWHP products. As a result, our company received a lot of queries regarding compressors for improvement of heating capacity and efficiency in cold climate. As a solution to heating in cold climate, we introduced our scroll and rotary two-stage compressor with VI function.

In case of one of our clients, I personally participated in evaluation of the products and assisted them with technical support. In the case of another client company, we held technical seminars, and provided technological support for a two-stage compression cycle system along with a cascade cycle system.

The most important factor for AWHP, just like any other product, is performance, noise and reliability.
Currently, AWHP is being widely used instead of boilers heating systems. In comparison to regular refrigerant products, AWHP has a wide range of applications; since, it is not only reliable for heating systems in residential and commercial areas, but is also capable of cooling. In addition, AWHP is a highly reliable product for long-term usage.

The most important aspect of the design is improvement of decline in performance due to defrosting operation and cold climate. The most classic solution to this problem is the use of VI, which offers high-compression ratio and high-speed operation. As far as defrosting operation is concerned, there are many ways being used to reduce the loss occurred in defrosting; the most typical solution is Hot gas bypass method or utilizing the source of the warm water tank. If the opportunity arises, I would like to explain the technical details on this in a seminar.

1. The scale of the market
The heating market in Europe is 8 million systems strong; among these, most are gas boilers, and AWHP systems are roughly 700,000 ~800,000 in number. Hereafter, if you consider the energy policies, refrigerant regulations and subsidies of Europe, there will definitely be a rise in switching to AWHP from gas boilers. According to ETP of International Energy Organization (IEA), AWHP market is estimated to grow by a 30%; however, a fraction of air conditioning businesses estimates the number to be more than 40%.

2. The orientation of refrigerant market
The refrigerant used in AWHP products can largely be divided into two refrigerants: R32 refrigerant, used in air-conditioning businesses and R290, used by boiler businesses.
Europe is a global leader in environment friendly policies, executing step by step carbon emission reduction through refrigerant regulations and refrigerant quota system. Henceforth, it will completely switch to natural refrigerants like R290 or low GWP refrigerants in future.

3. Energy regulations
Due to its energy policies, Europe is transitioning to high efficiency products like AWHP, which can achieve up to 100% efficiency.
In 2019, the E~G grade products were pulled out of market, resulting in withdrawal of oil boilers form the market. Eventually, gas and electric heater boilers will also be expelled from the market; since, the source of heat in these products is fossil fuels and electricity, which is not 100% renewable.
The most important feature of AWHP energy regulations of Europe is the distinction between the old buildings and the new buildings. The shift from gas or electric boiler to AWHP is spiking in old buildings; henceforth, there will be a rise in shift to AWHP in new buildings as well.

4. Noise
When I was working on developing an AWHP for the European market, the most unique selling points (USP) were reduction in noise and high performance in cold climate. In particular, customers are very sensitive to noise problems due to a possibility of claims being filed by neighbors.
Therefore, the manufacturers are emphasizing on products with low noise as USP; moreover, noise regulations are being prepared in some European countries. In future, the noise and vibration rules are expected to get stricter in Europe.

I think that the entry of hydrogen boilers as a substitute for fossil fuels is a good shift in the course. A lot of European manufacturers have shifted away from manufacturing hybrid boilers of hydrogen and fossils to 100% hydrogen-run boiler.

According to the opinion of experts in Europe, considering the utilization of the existing gas network and the utilization of the existing home heating system, it is a positive step due to no disruption to the infrastructure.

However, there are many hurdles to overcome, considering the need for mass-production, decarbonization, and extracting hydrogen from a renewable source of energy.