About Enerflow

M-Tech Industrial (Pty) Ltd designs, manufactures and supplies the Enerflow range of energy efficient heating and cooling equipment that includes:

Heat pump water heaters provide an alternative to solar water heating that has been widely promoted in recent times. Heat pump water heaters have been implemented successfully at a large number of centralized water heating installations found in the commercial and industrial sectors.

What is a heat pump?

A heat pump is in essence an extremely energy efficient heating and cooling technology that can make a substantial contribution towards reducing the peak power and energy consumption requirement in residential, commercial and industrial buildings.

A heat pump is a vapour compression cycle similar to an air conditioning unit. However, instead of the cycle being used for air cooling purposes with the associated heat as a by-product, a heat pump utilizes the heat generated in the cycle to heat water.

When used for heating water on a mild day, a typical air-source heat pump has a coefficient of performance (COP) of between 3 and 4, whereas a typical electric resistance heater has a COP of 1. The term COP is used to describe the ratio of useful heat generated to work input. The term COP is used to describe the ratio of useful heat produced to electricity input. While one unit of electrical energy will cause a conventional resistance heater to produce one unit of heat, a heat pump will produce 3-4 units of heat using only 1 unit of electricity. This implies a electricity consumption saving of about 67 percent!

Advantages of a heat pump

As with solar heating, heat pumps also have several benefits and disadvantages:

·       Heat pumps can save up to 67% of the energy required to heat water. With water heating by conventional geysers contributing 30-50% of a typical household electricity cost, it means that a heat pump can save 20-33% of the cost. This is more than what is currently required from the power ration scheme for the residential sector (10%) or the hospitality industry (20%).

·        Heat pumps are relatively easy to install and takes up much less space than a solar water heater. All that a heat pump requires is a free air arrangement resulting in it usually being an outside installation.

·        Heat pump installations, whilst more expensive than a conventional electrical resistance heater, are much less expensive than solar water heating installations. Payback periods typically varies between 2 and 4 years. The variance in payback periods is a function of several factors including levels of usage and the ease of installation.

·        The only disadvantage of a heat pump is its dependence on electricity. The South African electrical supply is currently sufficient for most of the day. The availability of electricity should at least stay this way, or even improve once energy efficiency programs start to show results. It will therefore not be an issue to have an energy efficient device that is still dependant on an electrical supply.