Water Source

Grants and Tariffs - For an ground source heat pump installation there are grants available of £1200.00 for private dwellings if applied for before the end of March 2012, plus phase two of the renewable heating incentive which is due to start in October this year, as yet we have no details of the tariff to be offered. For more information please contact us for a free quotation and energy assessment.

Commercial installations are eligible for phase 1 of the renewable heating incentive, this also includes district heating (e.g. more than one property being heated by on source), and this can be a house with an annexe, a small office and private dwelling, or a small group of houses. The tariff is 4.5p per kilowatt hour with the average size detached house using between 35 to 40,000 Kilowatt hours per annum, this is available now and runs for 20 years. For more information please contact us for a free quotation and energy assessment.

There are several ways of extracting heat from water, below are three examples:

1. A negative lifting pump which draws the water up to the heat pump which in turn extracts 3 to 4 centigrade then discharges back down stream into the river
2. Another way is to lay a ground loop which would have to be weighted down into the water, the loop would have to be filled with an anti-freeze, the heat pump would circulate the brain around the pipe which would pick up the heat of the passing water
3. A closed loop inserted into a Bore hole which would circulate and the heat pump would extract 3 to 4 centigrade

Advantages

• Option 1. Relatively cheap to install as there is no ground loop of large excavations necessary, there is just a flow and return from the unit to the River
• Option 2. Relatively cheap to install as there are no excavations necessary, there is just the cost of the pipe and brine
• Option 3. Is expensive to install due to excavation of Bore holes
• Out of all 3 heat pump systems, this is the most efficient with a COP ratings up to 6
• There is no limit to the size of the unit if you have a 3 phase electrical supply and a constant flow of water in the river

Disadvantages

• Option 1 You will need a licence to extract the water and a permit to dump the water, there is an application fee of £135 at present to extract the water then an annual fee of approximately £100 to £200.00 to dump the water there is a one off licence fee of anything from £121 to £853.00 depending on which category you come under, then an annual fee of £659.00. A flood defence licence is also required at a cost of £50.00 with no annual fee at present. Planning permission may also be required! Taking all the above into consideration there is quite a large annual fee with the possibility of the Environment Agency withdrawing the licence at a later date. A further consideration is the temperature of the water must not drop below 5 centigrade
• Option 2 and 3 While this system seems ideal the Environmental Agency are not keen on antifreeze running through pipes submerged in water as there may be a leakage