The emergence of heat pump PR – developments, innovation, and investments are booming in the sectors of tech and sustainability as a way for companies, buildings, and states to meet carbon emission goals. Heat pumps are efficient because they can transfer electricity and power in a way that uses less energy and does not add additional smoke or fumes into the air as society tries to move towards greener initiatives and solutions. Heat Pump PR brings awareness to the product category, the world towards our net zero goals, and investors seeking ROI by making them cheaper and more accessible as we race against the debilitating impacts of climate change.
Harvest Thermal taps $4M seed round to make heat pumps cheaper to run | TechCrunch
“In the last year or so, heat pumps have gone from being little known outside of HVAC circles to becoming a key plank in the Inflation Reduction Act. Today’s heat pumps are vastly superior to those deployed decades ago, but one startup thinks there’s still ample room for innovation.
Harvest Thermal isn’t tinkering with the heat pump itself, though. In fact, the company uses an off-the-shelf system in all of its installations. Rather, it has developed a small add-on about the size of two shoeboxes that allows the heat pump to run when electricity is cheapest and cleanest.
The company’s goal to drive down the cost of home electrification has netted it a $4 million early stage round led by Earth Foundry with participation from MUUS Climate Partners, Starshot Capital, and Portfolia, TechCrunch+ has exclusively learned.
Melia and her co-founders “went to the drawing board,” she told TechCrunch+, and came up with a system that integrated a heat pump and a hot water storage tank with “some really, really good controls.”
Diverting Half of Fossil Boiler Subsidies to Heat Pumps Can Decarbonize Heating by 2040 | CleanTechnica
“A new report, Green Heat for All, released today, hits the high note on heat pumps like a song on repeat. Heat pumps, as many others have pointed out, use only a small amount of the energy that older technologies did. By redirecting 50% of Member States’ fossil boiler subsidies to heat pumps, European heating could be decarbonized by 2040 with no performance loss and as little as half the annual cost.
The study also reveals that a practical additional investment of €21 billion over the next decade and a half will ensure a fairer and cleaner energy landscape for all, with a 7-year payback for all citizens installing heat pumps. Additionally, full upfront cost coverage could be available for low-income families. (Researchers estimated this to be 30% of households in Europe with fossil fuel boilers.) Carbon taxation allows the investment to be reduced to €14 billion.
The report paints an engaging narrative of the opportunity for an energy-efficient and cost-effective approach to alleviating energy poverty, which affects one in every four EU households and is exacerbated by out-of-date, costly fossil fuel heating systems”.
Heat pump plan is a gift for landlords | Renewable energy | The Guardian
“Giving low-income families free heat pumps (Report, 18 October) sounds like a great idea. However, I suspect that the majority of low-income families live in rented accommodation, so the only people to really benefit from this giveaway would be the landlords. What’s to stop their next step being to evict these low-income families, increase the rent for their newly enhanced properties and pocket the extra money?”
Heat pumps essential to reaching net zero goals – IEA report | EnergyMonitor
“When it comes to policy signals, the European heat pump industry has not had a good month. In September, as part of a wider backtracking from the UK’s previous climate goals, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced he is scrapping energy efficiency obligations for landlords and disbanding the UK’s home energy efficiency task force. Citing the country’s lagging heat pump market, Sunak also concluded that this technology is just too unaffordable for most households and that many homes in the UK “will never ever be suitable for a heat pump” to help them get to net zero.
Last week, at a heat pump industry summit in Brussels, speakers hit back at Sunak’s claims – pointing to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) update last month to its 2050 Net Zero Report, which concluded that the goal cannot be reached without the deployment of heat pumps. Together, heat pumps and electric vehicles need to provide at least one-fifth of the emissions reductions required by 2030, according to the report. China is speeding ahead on the technology, already becoming the largest heat pump producer in the world.
According to the IEA report, there are now three million heat pumps installed in the EU, compared with 4.5 million in the US, which is a smaller market. The prevalence of gas boilers, versus oil furnaces or electric heat in the US, has made deployment in Europe more difficult. That makes the policy signals in Europe even more important than in the US, said Cozzi. She noted that in her State of the EU address last month, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen highlighted heat pump installation as an essential part of the energy transition to net zero.”
This story shows heat pump PR efforts on the global stage.
New Report Explores Whether Consumers Will Electrify Homes, Drive Electric Vehicles | Utility Dive
“Most Americans are aware of electric alternatives to fossil fuel-powered household appliances, such as heat pumps, electric water heaters and induction cooktops, but few have yet to make the switch, according to a new survey from the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC), a nonprofit organization that studies the needs and wants of today’s energy consumers.
The “Electrification at Home and on the Road” report – which is based on an online survey of 1,500 respondents plus an additional sample of 621 electric vehicle (EV) drivers – found that most consumers who own electric water heaters, heat pumps or induction cooktops either had similar appliances when they purchased their current models or moved into a home that already had these appliances installed.
When it comes to electric vehicles, consumers are generally more supportive – though there are still concerns around public charging infrastructure. Fifty-six percent of respondents said that they are concerned with the charging time at public charging stations, while 44 percent are concerned with the cost of public charging and 43 percent are concerned with the availability of charging stations in their area.
The “Electrification at Home and on the Road” report, which can be downloaded here by SECC members and is available to the media on request, also explores the synergy between EVs, home electrification and rooftop solar and concludes with four specific recommendations for electricity providers and other industry stakeholders that may advance the march toward an electric future.”
The utility sector covering heat pump PR efforts is critical to mass adoption.
How heat batteries promise a cleaner future in industrial manufacturing | MIT Technology Review
“This is an exciting week for the heat-battery industry. Yesterday, Antora Energy, a California-based startup, announced its plan to open its first large-scale manufacturing facility in San Jose. While Antora has been producing modular heat batteries for a while, the company says this new factory will significantly increase its production capacity, which has the potential to help transition heavy industries away from fossil fuels.
When we talk about decarbonization, we often think about electrifying everyday activities, such as transitioning from cars with internal-combustion engines to EVs, replacing gas stoves with induction cooktops, and upgrading oil furnaces to heat pumps.
We’ve covered thermal batteries before as a unique approach to decarbonizing heavy industry. While companies use slightly different methods to generate and store heat, the fundamental concept is pretty straightforward: renewable energy sources like wind and solar are used to heat relatively low-cost materials, such as solid carbon blocks (in Antora’s case), which are insulated until the stored heat can be discharged for manufacturing purposes.
This boom is driven in part by government policies, like the Inflation Reduction Act, that provide funding to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels. A major concern is how to help emissions-heavy industries like manufacturing and their workforces transition to cleaner processes without major disruption—such as shutting down, or bringing in entirely new workforces to operate new technologies.
His optimism is partly due to heat batteries’ flexibility and their capacity to address multiple issues simultaneously. For one thing, these batteries can relieve the pressure on the grid by storing excess renewable energy while providing a cleaner source of heat to industries that have traditionally relied on fossil fuels.”
MIT is one of the most in-depth, tech-savvy media outlets covering heat pump PR today.
High hopes for a smaller but more focused hydrogen economy | Reuters
“Hydrogen bulls have taken a beating recently, with the International Energy Agency (IEA) cutting demand for the fuel in key forecasts and oil major Shell (SHEL.L) announcing job cuts and reduced scale in its hydrogen business.
The downbeat outlook is in stark contrast to the mood surrounding hydrogen just a few years ago, when it was widely hyped as a potential fuel for the freight sector and input or power source for hard-to-electrify industries.
That combination of scarcity and high expense has made it a challenge for potential end users to properly assess the viability of using hydrogen as a power fuel or heat source instead of current fuels. Compounding the issue of supply shortages has been the proposed use of hydrogen in applications that can be better and more cheaply served by other energy sources. For example, hydrogen-powered passenger trains have been developed in Germany that emit only water from their exhaust.
And as heat pumps have been making rapid inroads into home heating markets across Europe and elsewhere in recent years – at a fraction of the cost of a potential hydrogen set up – it is clear that household hydrogen applications will remain scarce. Hydrogen has also been considered as a fuel for airlines, with proponents of it claiming that as hydrogen is much lighter than traditional jet fuel, hydrogen-powered planes could have smaller wings and be lighter. However, merely to equip global airports with the necessary hydrogen fuelling tanks and equipment – on top of the existing fuel infrastructure – is widely deemed to be cost prohibitive, even if the idea of hydrogen planes takes off with airlines.”
***Heat pump PR guest post from FischTank PR interns: Veronica Riga and Bianca Roque ***
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