The project is called "A new high-performance and environmentally clean engine for heat pumps, using thermo-acoustics technology".
Heating and cooling represent 50% of the energy consumption in the EU and it represents 70% of the residential/domestic energy bill.
Heat pumps are the most energy efficient heating systems and sales are growing fast. However, despite the regulations and incentives to increase heat pump acceptance, in 2021, 2M heat pumps were sold, far from the 7M gas boilers installed that same year.
Gas boilers and fossil fuel heating systems still dominate the market, the reasons for this are:
1. Heat pumps are not a perfect fit for existing houses. They can efficiently deliver the low temperatures needed for new, well insulated, houses. But they can’t provide the high temperatures needed for the radiators of existing, not so well insulated, houses.
2. Heat pumps are expensive compared to the gas boilers that they need to replace.
3. Heat pumps are noisy.
4. Heat pumps still use HFC refrigerant gases with high global warming potential.
Current heat pumps use the vapor compression technique, that has been in the market for more than a century and has limited room for significant performance improvements. Therefore, there is a need and an opportunity to disrupt the heating and cooling market using a new technique.
Blue Heart Energy (BHE) has developed a new engine/component for heat pumps, using thermo-acoustics. The thermo-acoustic technology can replace the vapor compression core of heat pumps.
Blue Heart enhances the performance of heat pumps. Heat pumps with Blue Heart inside:
1. Are suitable for both new and existing houses, as Blue Heart can efficiently deliver both low and high temperatures.
2. Are easier to produce and to install, reducing the cost for the end customer.
3. Are silent.
4. Do not use any HFC refrigerants.
Blue Heart will enable the replacement of gas boilers with heat pumps, boosting their adoption by end customers.
Blue Heart Energy aimed to have the BH thermo-acoustic heat pump engine market ready by the end of this EIC Accelerator Project.
BHE is doing this by two development routes:
1. the development of a Minimal Viable Product and to get it tested and validated with BHE customers; and
2. the development of the mass production setup for the final market heat pump engines.
In the mean time the results are validated with future customers of BHE to ensure the new technology is taken into the production lines of heat pump manufacturers.
