Comparison of Calculation Methods of Renewable Energy Generated by Electric Heat Pumps

Abstract

Heat pumps are widely used in buildings due to high energy performance and environmental-friendliness. 2010/31/EU Directive of the European Parliament and Council requires assessing the consumption of primary energy generated from renewable sources when calculating the energy performance of buildings. However, the equation given in the 2009/28/EU Directive and guidelines 2013/114/EU of the European Commission does not take into account the amount of energy supplied by electric heat pumps into buildings. The paper presents the method that does not assess the energy input of primary sources for transforming electric power and for this reason, the calculations result in a lesser amount of energy than the ones obtained by the method of 2013/114/EU Directive. The calculation results proved that using merely heat pumps in nearly zero-energy buildings will not ensure the necessary amount of energy from renewable primary energy sources. Hence, to ensure the lacking amount of energy other renewable energy sources, such as solar panels, wind power plants, hydro power plants, biofuel, etc. are necessary to use.