Heat pumps with energy storage

Overview

Although heat pumps can perform efficiently and effectively for most heating hour, available products lose performance in the coldest conditions. To ensure resiliency, current practice in Minnesota is to accompany residential heat pumps with a redundant heating system, either combustion or electric resistance. Redundant systems are expensive, technically challenging to integrate properly, and can cause excessive electricity demand, especially during the coldest days of the year.

The project team will evaluate at least two different commercially available thermal storage technologies that address many of the shortcomings of cold climate heat pumps for space heating in MN. These technologies integrate heat pumps with thermal storage to enable resilient and efficient space heating, potentially without supplemental gas heating or excessive electricity demand.