Thames gives energy to river boat community

The Hermitage River Project, which aims to educate people about life on the Thames, worked with green energy specialist ISO Energy to invest in a water source heat pump to provide heating and hot water for its community.

ISO Energy claim that the heat pumps made by German manufacturer Stieble Eltron, will save the river boat community five tonnes of carbon emissions a year and run at a fifth of the cost of an electricity or immersion heating system.

ISO Energy managing director Justin Broadben said that although the Thames project was small scale the same method of transferring heat from water through a heat pump was being used to provide heat and hot water to the city of Stockholm.

“This heat pump is cutting edge technology and it is the future,” he said. “It extracts heat out of the Thames from ambient water temperature. That is then compressed up to 10 times to provide underfloor heating and up to 20 times to generate hot water. The only cost is the electricity to power the heat pump – the rest is free."

The community project uses the ground source heat pump system, the basic principle of which is the absorption of heat from the Thames, through a closed collector system containing water mixed with vegetable based antifreeze. The collector fluid then emits its heat to the refrigerant in the heat pump's evaporator. The refrigerant vaporises and is then compressed. The refrigerant, with its increased temperature, is led into the condenser where it emits its energy to the heat medium circuit, and therefore provides heating to the home or the hot water cylinder or both.

ISO Energy said the system had been up and running for over a week and was working well.