How to Add a Heat Pump System in Projects (Beta)

This article explains how to add a heat pump to your system design in OpenSolar.

By adding the component and modelling its energy needs, you can forecast its electricity consumption and show customers the new heating costs compared to their existing heating system.

Enter Heat Pump data in the Heat Input Field

The Heat input field in the Energy tab is where you can specify the size and type of heat pump suitable for your customer’s property. 

Pre-requisite:

To complete the Heat input fields the most appropraite heat pump for your customer’s property must first be sized. 

Disclaimer:

OpenSolar is not a regulatory compliant heat pump design tool. To sell heat pumps in some countries you must first complete a compliant heat pump assessment and design. In the UK compliant tools are freely available from MCS and other providers. 

OpenSolar Heat section is designed to allow for heat pump responsive solar designs to be generated, as well as the sale of appropriately sized (in accordance with local regulation) Heat Pump systems via the platform.

A. Select heat entry mode:

• Open your desired Project in OpenSolar.
• Navigate to the Energy tab.
• Scroll to the Heat section.
• Select the preferred entry method:
  • Manual Entry, or
  • JSON Upload.

Manual Entry (Recommended): 

• Manual Entry requires manual entry of the industry standard designed heat pump characteristics.
• This mode is compatible with any Heat Pump design software that outputs the annual heat pump energy demand (Total Annual Energy Consumption).
• In the back end, OpenSolar generate a default hour-by-hour heating profile based on where the Organisation is located.
• This is the recommended mode for most Solar Pros wanting to design heat-pump sensitive solar projects or start selling heat pumps as part of their solar project.
• Manual Entry is only suitable for heat pumps operating in heat only modes.
• Manual Entry is not suitable for heat pumps designed to operate in cooling or cooling and heating.

JSON Upload (Advanced):

• JSON Upload allows for advanced Heat Pump designers who have generated their own hour-by-hour heating demand profile for the property to upload the heat pump’s specific year-long energy profile, as well as the specific heat pump - complete with all it’s design parameters - to be uploaded to the Project directly.
• This mode is ideal for machine-to-machine integrated options.
• It requires bespoke building simulation and dynamic heat modelling software to generate and output the JSON structure.

B. Enter the Energy Performance & Design Data

This data is used to enable modeling of the electricity demand profile from a Heat Pump and the sizing of the solar.

• Note: This Information can be found in any compliant heat pump design report which must be completed for your customer’s property before.
• Enter the Peak Heat Demand in kW for the property, based on the design conditions for the region.
• Enter the Total Annual Energy Consumption for the heat pump in kWh. This is the electrical demand, rather than the heat output. (Required field)
• Enter the External Winter Design Dry Bulb temperature in degC. This is the design temperature used for sizing the heat pump heating capacity.
• Enter the External Summer Design Dry Bulb temperature in degC. This is the design temperature used for sizing the heat pump cooling capacity.

C. Enter the Heat Pump Data

This data is used to enable selling of the designed heat pump.

• Enter the Model Name
• Enter the Manufacturer
• Enter the AHRI Number or MCS Number (depending on region). Where applicable, these are used look up further product details on the respective product characteristics data base.
• Entery Quantity as 1.

Your specified Heat Pump will now be available within the Project.

Add the Heat Pump Component to System Design

To be included in calcs and Proposal, you will need to add the Project Heat Pump component to one or all of your designed Systems in the Design tab.

1. Navigate to Design: Open your project and go to the Design tab.
2. Select "Other Components": In the left-hand panel, click on the Other components tab.
3. Add Heat Pump Component by clicking Add Heat Pump in the notification 

4. In the new component that’s added to the Other section, select the dropdown and Select Heat Pump make and model. Search the database for the specific heat pump model you're proposing and add it to the project.
5. Save the Project and System designs by pressing the Save button

How the Heat Pump data is used

• Take the Total Annual Energy Consumption x heating profile for that country to generate a 8760 profile
• This is then added to the Existing site consumption (if a new heat pump) to generate a new total consumption curve. This can then be used by Pros to model their solar and match the total site generation with total site demand, if that’s their solar sizing strategy.

4. How we use HP data in Proposal

• The resulting before and after running costs should pull through and be visible in Classic and Sales Machine Proposal
• In Sales Machine Proposal, the exclusion of gas will also be included to show the lifestyle change

Featured Figures Compatible with EoE Projects

When a Heat Pump is added to a project, EoE-compatible Featured Figures can be used to showcase the impact of electrification within the proposal.