BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, Hope and disillusion in South Africa
www.bbc.co.uk
Almost thirty years after the end of apartheid, Fergal Keane revisits the country.

Germany is struggling to get people on-board with a green energy movement that involves banning high footprint domestic heating systems (e.g. gas boilers)-- thus forcing people to migrate to heat pumps. A low-income family who was interviewed said it would cost €45k to install a heat pump in their terraced home in Bremen.

That price tag sounds unreal. I am baffled. What’s going on here? I guess I would assume an old terraced German home would likely have wall radiators that circulate hot water. Is the problem that a heat pump can’t generate enough heat to bring water to ~60°C, which would then force them to add a forced-air ducting infrastructure? Any guesses?

(note the link goes to a BBC program that looks unrelated, but at the end of the show they switch to this issue in Germany. I’m not sure if that show is accessible… I see no download link but that could be a browser issue)

  • @[email protected]
    6•11 months ago

    Confused side note - why does the title link point to a BBC story about South Africa? :) Edit: oh, I see.

    To answer the question - I don’t know.

    For comparison: installing an air-to-air heat pump for a tiny house in Estonia:

    • heat pump unit (smallest unit, maybe 3 KW heat output for 1 KW electrical input), bought at the deepest discount: 450 €
    • physical installation (mounting on a rack on a wall) - DIY, 0 €
    • electrical installation (running a cable to the outer unit and back to the inner from there) - DIY, 0 €
    • insulated copper heat pump pipes, 3 meters: less than 60 € (don’t remember)
    • pressing flanges on the pipes with a car brake pipe tool: DIY [note: leave to technicians, this is tricky], 0 €
    • sealing and letting the working fluid into pipes - technician’s visit, 100 €

    I would imagine that an air-to-water unit costs more (the cheapest are probably over 1000 €, unless you use a pool heat pump which can be crappy), that an average German family lives in a far bigger house (so maybe 3 x more wattage, making the machine cost 3000 € instead), and that they need 3 installation technicians for several hours (maybe 1500 €).

    Beyond that - profit?

    • @[email protected]English
      6•11 months ago

      Tiny house = very tiny and probably new and well insulated.

      Estonia also likely has very low labour costs and less difficulty finding staff.

      Hydronic systems are usually in the >15kW range, and often have split indoor and outdoor units so you need to both do the refrigerant piping between indoor and outdoor, and the water piping to the radiators. Many systems also include domestic hot water heating as part of the same system, so three separate sets of plumbing.

      In most of the first world, purging linesets, vacuuming, and releasing refrigerant is usually ~$500.