The SUNAMP Hot Water Battery: What is it and How Does it Work?
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- čas přidán 28. 06. 2024
- Most plumbers don't even know this exists - The Sunamp is a revolutionary energy storage device for hot water systems. The Sunamp water heater is 4 times smaller than a conventional hot water cylinder.
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You are an excellent presenter and spokesman for your company - very clear and comprehensive delivery without overwhelming your audience with jargon and complex concepts. And this is from a former technical writer.
That looks a good product. I work for a housing association and we have plenty of properties with heat pumps with cylinders. Quite a lot of them are bungalows with wet rooms. The large cylinders are only used for washing up and washing hands. A terrible waste of energy. This looks like an excellent solution. I'm a plumbing and heating engineer and think we have a long way to go to for heat pumps, whether ground source or air source to work as well or as cheaply as gas boilers. Especially in social housing. This is definitely heading in the right direction.
I do like the glass front showing off all the pipes inside. It’s like a piece of artwork. Absolutely amazing tech. Thank you for sharing this.
This is probably just a demo unit to show all the pipes and bits. No telling how the final product will look. Think about it, a glass front will waste heat
@@volvo24091 you’re probably right, but it does make it into a nice art piece for your kitchen.
Thanks Robert. As Volvo24091 says it is a demo unit with one of the sides replaced with clear perspex to show what's inside. The final product looks just the same with a white panel instead of the clear one. This is our 4th generation product - 20,000 heat batteries have been installed so far.
@@SunampLtd it still looks better with clear acrylic though.
Heat batteries using something other than water are a good idea for saving space. You can only heat water to 100C, but there are plenty of other materials that will be happy at 500C. There are some interesting designs that just use large masses of sand.
The design of this system seems pretty innovative.
The one most important question is what does it cost over a conventional tank, their are loads of great energy devices out there but the cost makes them impartible.
From what I can find on the website. The small one is about £1500 + installation! So doesnt look too bad a price. But I don't know how nbig unit would suit most people
Haa but cost a solar tank , thats a tank with upto 3 inputs plus immersion heater
We have one I installed myself, it cost the same the best wet hot water tank, our hot water running costs over ther last 6 months averaged out at 80p pw. We are soon to use solar to heat our water, currently we are using cheap overnight energy.
How long it lasts is also pretty important.
@@nitelite78 No coment seems to be the answer to that one.
Would only take this over a traditional storage if it comes with the same showroom front plexiglas, that storage looks cool 💪
I'd like to know how many BTU's (or equivalent) are stored in the various sizes. That's really the only way to know if it will perform as needed.
Absolutely brilliant!
That’s a really neat idea.
The ability to store actual heat in a chemical solution where it could then sit on a shelf for a long duration without loosing the stored energy because it is no longer simple heat in a tank, then all at once you can essentially press a button and the energy will change from chemical potential in waiting back into physical heat to be used/enjoyed.
It makes perfect sense why this is called a heat battery.
It doesn't store the heat chemically, it stores it as heat. Phase change materials still store heat as heat, so therefore must be insulated in the same way and the lose their heat to insulation losses the same way as hot water does. Phase change material only allows more heat to be stored (as heat) in a smaller area, but there's no chemistry here.
Lots and lots of questions asking about controllability of the PCM, for example when you turn a hot tap on..then off after a few seconds….does the reaction stop or does the unit discharge all its heat and then need a “re charge”. Pointedly, although this question keeps getting asked, neither Sunamp or eFixx have responded ( unless I have missed it ) ????
Very nice presentation, along with a very nice product. I have worked in industry over 40 yrs, with equip producing temp as low as -40
thru glass oven operating at 1270 deg. Can you imagine the wasted free energy, my crews have pissed out the window in that time frame.
Great explanation
Fantastic bit of kit, they should look at getting that into the marine industry too, excess heat from the engines stored for hot water onboard ... good to have finally met up with you guys
Great idea bud, such a pleasure to meet you in person at last. 😊
The car industry. More than 50% ends up as waste heat
Well, not just marine. I could see a small(er) version be a good option for campervan heating.
@@ByteBitten my thoughts exactly
I "lived aboard" a 42' Mathews cabin cruiser for over a decade through the '90s and solarvoltic wasn't worthwhile back then, we had a solar water heater on the roof and a very insulated hot water tank down in the engine space. it also was plumbed into the engines closed loop cooling system so anytime you had run the main engines you also had hot water.
And many American RV buses and motorhomes also do heat recovery from the engine to the potable hot water tank
Good stuff, thanks for sharing!
Massive thanks for watching 👍🏻
Excellent!
great video and great idea
That was really interesting, well presented and a clear explanation of an excellent product. I'm an energy assessor and this looks like it could be a game changer in the industry.
Ok this is extremely interesting. I'm a plumber and this seems to be a game changer
Very good product
Wow , brilliant
That was really interesting, Its a phase changing heat store, Great We need inovations like this .. But More info would be useful.... what temperature does it melt at ? How hot must your heat pump run? How hot does it make the water ? Whats its life span ( small pipes fir up) ? Whats its cost (& that might be affordable as its only a heat exchanger , salt & vinegar). ?
With this the Heat Pump flow needs to be hotter than the melting point, & the melting point hotter than the hot water So here you have 2 "Hotters" , If you have a normal cylinder , the Heat pump only needs to be hotter than the hot water, 1 "Hotter". Getting the heap pump flow as low as possible is best for COP. Thoughts ?
We’ve installed a few, great piece of kit
Good to know, thanks for commenting!
How is the amount of heat on demand controlled? When the hand warmers stop heating and need to recharge how do you vet heat while recharging?
That looks like a great bit of technology.
I love it! 😊
Can you tell me more about the pressure relief valve?
Great stuff. Have you looked at its compatibility with a thermodynamic heating panel system?
Looking forward to seeing more content on this channel !!
I have seen these down at the National Self Build & Renovation Centre in Swindon (very much worth a visit BTW)
Fascinating concept, but I REALLY would like to see some real-world data on this sort of stuff. I won't be short on space, so I am likely to go with a cylinder, but I would consider this if I saw some real end-user experience and data. As it stands, I would not have the confidence to put one of these in.
Fair points, stay tuned for future content!
There have been large trials with local authority housing in Scotland. The reports are on the Sunamp website.
Fascinating. Once the pcm reaction starts, can it be stopped? Or all the hot water has to be consumed at one go?
At scale it's even more advantageous for storing heat on heat networks as unlike a buffer tank, all the heat comes of at the same temperature rather than cooling as heat is taken off.
I would see this product as combo with a less complex heat pump.
With this product you can simplify the HP, you can have a mono temperature heat pump. No need of special components for hight temperature heat (two speed compressor, added three way valves etc).
I have a heat pump installed (in 2010) and am costing a replacement. The Thermino looks great and would definitely offer space saving over the 600 litre unvented tank currently installed. Our water is very hard - how does the Thermino cope with scaling? Also the current tank has two circuits, one for the underfloor heating and one for DHW. Do I need two Thermino units? Great presentation, much appreciated.
What a great piece of kit! Assume you can run this from a boiler also at lower temperatures with no issue while you look to start exploring HP & low temp systems?
Yes works with all types of heating systems.
Really frustrating to me that this simple obvious “transition” question isn’t answered clearly on their website.
How many inputs does one of these have? Could I connect an oil boiler, boiler stove and solar hot water together? It looks like an interesting idea that would be worth further research. Thanks
Super interesting !
We thought so! Thanks for watching and commenting. 😊
@@eFIXXENERGY keep up the good work. I personally work in the storage field, and am really pleased to see news ideas such as this latent heat compact solution. And I guess it doesn’t even need to be G99 compliant ;)
Amazing. Real point about Legionella. Still seems like steam engine from light trickle on heated material, then feeding a chemistry battery remains option for house. For electric vehicles has to be applications too. Electricians must know immediately.
We have an older version, the Uniq, not the Thermino, but I imagine the principle is the same. Interesting to see it explained properly at last, rather than just the 'it works like a hand warmer' I got from the Fischer Future heat fitters. I'm still not quite sure though how it works with only cold water coming through it, as it is our only source of hot water, no immersion heater tank, so does it just use electricity to turn the pcm back to it's liquid form, ready for the next time water is needed heating?
The Sunamp is great, but sadly very few trades know anything about them and there are even less installers in the North of England. Would consider getting one to replace a hot water tank but not cheap as just an upgrade. Like the new channel!
Yeah, it was brand new to us as well. Thanks for coming along for the journey. 😊
To be fair they're extremely simple, best way to think of it is an indirect hot water tank just made smaller. The only difference is it uses something like candle wax instead of water to hold heat (melts and solidifies - phase change material). Everything else is practically the same.
@@eFIXXENERGY I guess the biggest selling point of these is that they're smaller than cylinders. The issue I have is that the cylinder ones are also sometimes heat pump cylinders anyway.
I'd prefer to use a heat pump cylinder, linked in to an air source heat pump. This is also not something I'd do straight away given my aim is to make my house super air tight + then install an MVHR
Does this system need venting the site I’m choosing will be difficult to get to outside just worried about overpressure? Thanks james
If the piping has no issues with lime scale.... That's a great product!
The big question for me is flow rates, as in litres per minute pass through at 60 degrees no good if it's like an undersized combi boiler having to slow the tap down to get nice hot water!
I’m about to get UniQ HW 6 +i fitted in the next couple of weeks. Any feed back would be amazing it’s still not too late for me to cancel. Pro’s & Cons Thnaks
Interesting. Like others on CZcams, I'm curious about residential cost and installation procedure. I'm also state side, and there don't appear to be any distribution channels for us.
Good to know about this as It is so new. Was watching and thinking what’s this got to do with electrics until I realised it was a different channel 😂
😂 Easy mistake to make, stay tuned for more! 👍
What is the flow rate you can achieve with these, the sun amp needs to heat the water to use, can you fill a bath or run a shower whilst the kitchen is being used?
Can this be added to a thankless water heater system? I have a gas tank less in my house. I'll be adding PV on the roof and this seems like a cost effective way to store energy
I would see that in Switzerland especially in 2nd houses (chalet) where you have a seperate system to do HW with a boiler doing 20 cycle of 20 to 75deg during the year for nothing. When you only need a pcm pluged to the main heater with the temperature around 50 deg.
Good video with great & clear explanation. I’ve purchased the smallest version - the 70e & managed to get it into the loft of our one bedroom top floor flat. We are on the Octopus Agile tariff which is working out about 45% cheaper than Economy 7 but atm I’m scheduling the charging of the battery manually using the Smart Life App. I would like to automate this process with something like the IFTTT but my smart switch doesn’t seem to be compatible. Any recommendations how to do this?
Good review. Where and when did the exhibition take place?
It was held at ExCel London 1-3 March
Clever stuff! 😎👌 So it's a bit like pumping water through a grid of pipes and heat exchangers set in the chemical? Or like a storage heater stores its heat?... Salt & vinegar for your chips by the bucket full if it leaks lol.
That's exactly right, it's essentially a storage heater with the added bonus that the phase change material makes it super effective as it can store more heat than water, which makes the unit smaller than a tank. 👍
Very informative. Can you tell me if there are any benefits to installing a Sunamp if you don't have solar panels or a heat exchanger, but instead use mains electricity?
Not unless you can get cheap electricity, which normally means having the ability to delay using most of your electricity until nightime.
Interesting.
1.Great to see efixx going into home energy area.
2. How heavy are these? Could they be installed onto a wall like a boiler can? As it's ok being small, but if they have to be ground mounted, that reduces some of the benefits.
3. I think Fully Charged home series video included Sunamp products for a couple of tower blocks in Sunderland. Apparently, one of the benefits was low maintenance costs, but some real world costs/ testing/data would be appreciated.
We'll see if we can get some technical answers from Sunamp! 😊
I fit these regularly they weigh around 120kg and cannot be fitted on to a wall they rarely go wrong how ever they can be expensive to run
@@rhysspencer9232 expensive to run ? what do you mean ??
Weight depends on the size of the heat battery selected. Thermino 300 - our largest unit - is 211 kg . It's actually lighter than the equivalent hot water tank full of water, saving money on reinforcing the airing cupboard where the hot water tank usually would be fitted, as well as providing a much cleaner and tidier installation. Unlike hot water cylinders, there is no mandatory annual maintenance required and no risk of legionella.
@@SunampLtd excuse my ignorance here. Few Questions if I may… if I keep applying energy and/or higher temperatures to the heat battery PCM will it continue to store more usable energy? For example applying 100oC - 200oC? Basically is there a maximum supply temperature? Will/could this degrade the PCM? If you don’t have to worry about space, what’s your main selling point/s please? Thanks for your time.
What is the melting/freezing point of your phase change material? I want to make a coffee cup that absorbs the "too hot to drink" energy but gives it back (phase change temp) to flatten the temp drop curve to lengthen the optimal drinking temp time? Brilliant right?
Interesting. The phase change material used in the Thermino product range melts/freezes at 58°C. Sunamp has phase change materials across a widen range of temperatures for different applications, for example, -30°C for refrigeration, 5°C for cooling such as cold chain storage, 58°C for domestic hot water and space heating and 118°C for high temperature >80°C hot water applications such as sterilisation
Is, it as fast as a 250 litre tank in filling your bath. Or is as slow as combo boiler?
I was experementing with this technique some years ago.. Really glad to see one tgis idea made an actual product by someone. I am wondering how you trigger the phase change when you need it.. Also something very interesting you forget to mention is tha the energy is stored individually from the environment .. what i mean is that if you store a hot water in a tank if its freezing cold outside it will loose its heat but this is independent from the environment you can have it in the snow for hours you will still have the heat once you triggered the reaction ... Even better you in a bigger scale you can store heat on summer and just trigger it months later to have heat on winter !! Well done guys
How did your experiments go? And do you know how they make their phase change material? I'd be very interested to try making one DIY style! I had thought about beeswax for storing heat from a wood stove.... I'd love to hear more about DIY projects using this principle! Any links much appreciated!
It’s not magic - you need heat to change the phase of the material in the first place. It can’t magically store it for months. It will change phase back as heat escapes and the temperature falls below the phase change point. That’s how it heats the cold water because the cold water triggers that phase change. If you have a heat pump you would need to add heat back in because releasing all that heat without cold water to absorb it would likely damage the unit. It’s efficient because it doesn’t require a lot of energy to maintain it above the phase change point.
@@mondotv4216 Yes, I understand that. Do you know the answers to my questions above? I would be very interested to hear if you do!
@@justinsenryu7308 yes it can store energy for months !! If the phase its not triggered.. You can experiment pretty easy .. you can Diy the material pretty easy mix vinegar and baking soda at the right ratio and the boil it until vinegar ecvaporate.. you can find diy steps on youtube the unofficial name is Hot ice.. You can do it for sure you just need to find a smart way to trigger the solutions back to crystals when you need heat.. its a bit difficult cz sometimes its triggering by itself..
@@alternativeenergychannel2289 Thanks! Can you explain your own system of triggering?
How does it control the crystallisation process? If the design is similar to heat pads, once crystallisation starts, it can't be stopped. In which case, you would need to use all of the energy that it is storing immediately, else it would go to waste.
What temp rise from cold inlet to hot?
What is the minimum injection temperature from a heat source to charge the matterial. Do you manufacture a sea container sized heat bank.?
so this is kind of like a combi boiler (instantaneous hot water, not stored) but instead of gas its using stored energy which can come from either heat pump or electric? How long can it hold the heat? Eg could you heat up with off peak overnight electric and use through the following day? And can this run heating as well as hot water, or mainly for hot water only?
how do you replace the salt when the salt is unchargeble?
What is the temperature, where the phase change happens? Does this fit to all kind of Heatpumps? Or is the Salt-Vinegar mixture actually adjusted to your individual system at home?
Iirc residential is 58C by default but they can tweak the phase change point up or down. Industrial usage is 90C for instance.
Our Thermino range of heat batteries for domestic hot water contains high performance Plentigrade P58 phase change material. the phase change happens at 58degC. We currently have models compatible with Samsung models (AE050RXYDEG/EU + MIM-E03CN;
AE080RXYDEG/EU + MIM-E03CN; AE120RXYDEG/EU + MIM-E03CN); Daikin models (ERGA04DVA + EHBH04D6V; ERGA06DVA + EHBH08D6V; ERGA08DVA + EHBH08D6V) and Vaillant Arotherm Plus. You can view the full range here sunamp.com/thermino-thermal-storage-for-domestic-hot-water/
Does the electrical circuit stop when a certain temperature has been reached?
Hello
Do you do any training course to be an approved installer in order to get maximum warranty for the unit
Thank you
There aren't many materials with a higher specific heat than water, and those are phase change materials. But even heat stored in phase change medium is subject to the exact same thermal losses - you don't own the heat - you only borrow it. If you don't use it, it goes away the same as if it was stored as hot water.
Great idea but leaves me with two questions, firstly how do you trigger the crystallisation process within the unit and secondly once triggered how do you control it and prevent all the solution from crystallising at once and hence expending all the energy in one go.
As I understand they are not using up super saturated liquid (salt water) like the hand warmers do.They use paraffin wax. So it's not really a great example to use the hand warmer as a comparison. But paraffin wax holds twice as many joules per kilogram of heat vs water. They have simply designed a container for melted paraffin wax that is insulated like a hot water tank, and then they run exchangers through the paraffin to extract the heat into water as demand requires. If you leave the thermino for months without input heat the wax will eventually lose its heat and solidify, unlike a hand warmer.
First how hot does it get so how much energy does it store and will it heat up the water really instantly. Second when lets say the 300 liter capacity is spent, how long will it take until it is operational again to heat up the same amount?
it could easily be put on the roof near the solar panels.
even a drain back heat collector to heat it, twice as efficient as PV panels, so half the size.
Great bit of kit. What sort of price are they though?
Don’t get much change from a £1000 - good to see you here Brian.
Could you use this system with PV and the integrated emersion heater to provide hot water and thus reduce your gas bill to only power your heating, in an average 3 bed semi?
Yes our Thermino ePV, is the right product for this. It charges by using Solar Power via a Solar Power diverter.
Can this still be used with a combi!?? I have excess solar and don’t have the space for a tank or the money to change a 3 year old boiler
I'm in Australia. Can one to these take the rejected heat from the air conditioning heat pump that cools my house?
What about if you have poor water pressure? Still need pumps?
Hello,It is an interesting product. I would like to ask you, what are the losses [ kwh / day] ?
Heat loss rate kWh/24 (W) according to size of heat battery is: Thermino 70 - 0.48 (20); Thermino 150 - 0.67 (28.1); Thermino 210 - 0.77 (32.1); Thermino 300 - 0.84 (35)
I enjoyed the video very much thank you. You mention with its 'energy efficiency' (5.10 time line) but you don't mention how efficient it is? Ideally it would be good to know how efficient is it compared to a normal domestic hot water.
It depends what's meant by efficient really, you're never going to get more heat out of this than you put in so it boils down (pardon the pun) to the insulation really.
Got to be use a lot less energy to get up to temp that when compared to a 300liter cylinder - even if it’s not as efficient
@@russellthomas9391 No, the point is this small box would hold a similar amount or energy as a large cylinder of water as it is using a principal of heat of fusion - when a material changes sate is can absorb masses amounts of energy and not increase in temperature. Just need to pick the material whose phase change temperature matched the temperature output you need.
@@russellthomas9391 you can't get out more than you can put in.
@@eFIXXENERGY What "efficiency" means to just about everyone who has even a rudimentary knowledge of physics and mechanical systems is how much energy is converted through the device and how much is lost. The conventional hot water heater burns gas or electrically heats an element to heat the water, this unit primarily uses heat from an outside source and a direct electrical element as a booster. Not exactly apples to apples.
So how good is the material and housing at retaining heat when idle and how much heat is is absorbed from the heat pump comparing the pump side inlet/outlet temperatures to a heat exchanger in a tank of water? Simple questions that would be very easily measurable and answered.
This system looks as if it would pair well with a solar hot water system. If the water was mixed with glycol and circulated in a closed loop like the heat pump allowing the solar hot water system to operate in sub freezing temperatures.
Excellent concept, hope it's successful in longevity and competitive in costs.
What temperature water can it supply? And what has to be the temperature of the water going in to store the heat?
I believe they heat to around 70°C, you install a thermovalve on the hot outlet to supply your basins
Good presentation. I have been looking at these for a while, thinking this could be an ideal solution to replace my gas boiler. Few questions I've had:
1) Could they replace my boiler for the central heating as well as heat my hot water?
2) Could I heat overnight from the grid on cheap energy as well as using my solar panels?
3) How cost efficient are they to run compared to a gas/electric boiler?
4) If I heated it up at night on cheap rate electricity could it heat my home all day? (obviously depends on size of house, how cold etc, but looking for some averages).
Imagine it as an electric hot water tank, just made smaller. The energy savings lie where you use a heat pump for the heat over the internal element.
It's not really made to store enough heat to warm your entire home, more to buffer the requirements you have for heat. It would work alongside a heat pump or boiler (typically where you have large peak hot water demands), not ideal to replace them entirely.
In answer to your first question, yes - and our range for domestic space heating will be launched this year. The asnwer to your second question is also yes. In the Thermino ePV model, the solar power diverter can have a boost setting to allow the unit to charge overnight on a cheap tariff in addition to the PV demand.
Looks good although seems to depend on a heat pump and no mention made of the cost!
Might be a silly question but can you feed cold water into this to make it hot ?
How hot does the input have to be? My understanding is that ASHP are most efficient at lower temps like 40-50c. Do you need a special ASHP to recharge the sunamp?
Current commercial Sunamp products require a minimum of 65 degrees, so they push up into the less efficient end of the heat pump temperatures.
Hi, I'm looking into the alternatives for a new heating / hot water system and I want to get a setup that can cope with changes. I'm thinking of continuing with a gas boiler for now, as to install a heat pump would be too much of a financial commitment. I have been looking at the mixergy tank, but you can only get an indirect coil/ immersion tank in unvented form which could give me issues regarding pressure relief pipework.
I'm sure Sunamp used to make more of charging it with heat from a gas boiler in the past but this is the most recent I have seen it mentioned. Would you plumb it the same as a cylinder if you can set a low temp at the boiler and would the signal back to the boiler work on capacity and not really temp. My short term aim would be to use cheap off-peak electric then gas as a backup , medium term PV, and then finally heat pump.
Having done some more research on Sunamp's website it's not as versatile as I'd hoped. You have to buy different models per application (HP/Boiler/PV as main) rather than being able to add HP module later like Mixergy. Would have thought low flow temp gas boilers are getting close to newer HP's temp now, in fact an older model UNiQ HW+iPV went to other way by saying for use with high temp HP and gas boiler.
Is there any studies that actually show if there are any savings in electricity with the Sun amp water heater.
Was this PHEX exhibition? Think I missed this one
Quick (and perhaps uniformed question!): Can this be used to replace a boiler for both DHW and heating circuits? Or is it only "meant" for DHW replacement? I ask as we have a oil-fed condensing boiler feeding a hot water tank (for DHW) and also teh heating circuit. Thanks in advance.
The short answer is yes, but the longer and more useful answer is that it depends on the model selected, and it may well be that in practice you'd choose 2 separate heat batteries rather than a single one with dual heat-exchangers inside it (although these do. as I say, exist).
how long will this system take to heat up water at ambient temperature? Will it take the same time as an immersion heater i.e. 5-10 mins?
The exchange/heating would be instantaneous as the PCM is held at a much higher temperature than boiling point of water.
What is the price point and will it be available in the US?
Excellent video and very clear description, thank you. You mention using the heat battery for a shower or to wash up... could it be used to replace a gas combi boiler for central heating, i.e. hot-water radiators? Could it supply enough hot water to heat to run the central heating for 2-3 hours in the evening and morning? Thank you.
In short, no. The heat required to heat a large space far exceeds the capacity of any form of storage.
I hope to build a house with 55gal drums full of this someday. Then solar heat it during the day and use the phase change to get more even heat output thru the night.
Under used technology.
wow
so, what volume of hot water is available from this?
Enough to fill a bath for example?
Need to get a boatload sent down under!! Great idea!
So we want to heat up our home hot water with a extra large hand warmer? It's super old technology that's been stickered over with catchy marketing jargon like "phase change material" when it's just a hand warmer in a box?
A key question is in how the stored energy is released? Is it released all at once or can it be released in fractions? With the hand warmer example, all of the stored energy is released at once. It takes time to cool down, but the whole lot of sodium acetate is crystallised in one go. It's not like a battery where I can draw off just the energy I require.
I believe they are using paraffin wax kept at high heat with a wax to water, heat exchanger running through the wax.
@@JayGoldbergExists They state that the phase change material is sodium acetate, see 4:40 onwards. He describes the material as comprising of salt and vinegar, which is not correct, but that's probably just misspoken. Sodium hydroxide and vinegar would form sodium acetate.
How heavy are these units, do they arrive empty and we add water on installation?
The units are filled with a phase change material so arrive on site fully filled. This does make the units quite heavy compared to empty hot water cylinders.
Size 3 which is the one in the video weighs around 60kg the 6 is around 120kg the next size up will probably be in the 200 range
When the system fails, and it will. I can imagine the cost for someone to come out and fix it right the first time will be astronomical. It reminds me of an old Homart stainless steel porcelain lined gas furnace in a house I used to own, sure it wasn't that efficient but it chugged away every year for 50 years and it still in the house. My Sister had a new high efficiency model and had a guy out every year to fix the damn thing. Technology is great just make sure its dependable!
Totally agree, I was just reading through the comments looking for something like this. Obviously it will be beneficial for some applications, but you almost have to re-skill an entire industry. There may be a reason the old 'hot water cylinder' has been around for so long.
That said, a very interesting product, and I will research it some more before committing to replace my vented cylinder with an unvented unit.
I'm always suspicious of new products, but this sounds a viable option to gas. However what is the life expectancy of this product and does it need regular servicing?
Cool… i got an AC with heat exchanger 👍
Its standby power is 7W...it's like 2 LED bulbs switched on, what does it do when standing by, why 7W for standby? For the "e" models (mains electricity only models), does it need to use the full power for hours each day, or only need the power at the moment when the hot water taps are switched on?
No mention of round trip efficiency figures?
How long until this system wears out? What is the max temperature it can work at ? how much heat loss in standby mode compared to a tank?
How many litters a minute and at what temperature can this produce with a 40°c flow temperature from a heat pump?
Looks like a good bit of kit, I’m guessing it uses the immersion heater to boost the hot water temp?
My understanding from speaking to Sunamp themselves is that all their current commercial units require an input heat of 65 degrees C, because the phase change fluid is the 58 degree product. Thus as things stand, charging one of these from a heat pump is done so at a only with higher temperature heat pumps, and thus at lower COPs that you would really want from the use of your heat pump.