Heat Pump Hydronic Buffer Tank - Thermal Battery

Exerpt
A larger buffer tank for your hydronic heat pump system provides additional thermal storage or
battery that has these benefits:

• Moderates the extremes of your indoor temperature range

• Stabilizes your indoor temperature
• Balances the temperature better throughout your home
• Reduces your energy consumption due to the passive warming and cooling effect

The mass of your home provides thermal storage for your heating and cooling system and provides
these benefits:

• Moderates the extremes of your indoor temperature range

• Stabilizes your indoor temperature
• Balances the temperature better throughout your home
• Reduces your energy consumption due to the passive warming and cooling effect

Thermal mass is particularly beneficial in climates with a high diurnal variation, where there is a large
difference between the day and night time temperatures. This is particularly important in southern
and inland Australian climates which have this high diurnal variation. Ideally, your home should be
constructed with high thermal mass inside the building fabric such as a concrete slab or feature walls
made of brick or stone.

If your home is made of lightweight construction, such as timber framed weatherboard on

suspended floor, then you should consider adding thermal mass.

If you are considering installing a heat pump hydronic system, you have the opportunity to add
thermal mass by installing a large buffer tank. A heat pump has the added benefit over a gas boiler in
that it can reverse cycle and provide cooling in summer. It can also be powered by your solar panels
during the day.

Water is a very good store of thermal energy so increasing the size of the buffer tank is a good way
to add thermal mass. You can look at this as a thermal battery. Your heat pump hydronic system
needs a buffer tank to operate efficiently and effectively. However, you can increase your buffer
tank size to 200, 400, 700 or even up to 1500 litres to create a very large thermal battery.

In summer, your thermal battery works to keep your home cooler. When the temperature rises
during the day, your heat pump can operate in reverse cycle removing heat from your inside your
home and transferring it outside. This works better with underfloor hydronic systems due to the
large surface area. Hydronic radiators in reverse cycle will provide some cooling but are less effective
due to lower surface area. Fan convectors such as in-floor trench and concealed types are better
because they draw air across the cold-water coils. For more information:

If you are installing solar panels, then adding thermal mass is a more important consideration. This is
because your daytime solar power can be stored in the thermal battery of your buffer tank and
building mass for release into the evening. The thermal energy stored will moderate the change of
temperature in the evening when you are no longer producing solar power. For more information:

To give an idea of how much solar power you need to run a heat pump, an 8.5kW Stiebel Eltron heat
pump can heat and cool a home of around 150m2. This heat pump will need 1.8kW of power for
underfloor heating with an outside air temperature of 7 degrees. It will need slightly more power
Heat Pump Hydronic Buffer Tank - Thermal Battery

below this temperature and less above. Radiator heating will need a bit more power because the
water temperature needs to be higher than underfloor heating.

A 14kW Stiebel Eltron heat pump can heat and cool a home of around 250m2. This heat pump will
need 2.9kW of power for underfloor heating with an outside air temperature of 7 degrees. Also, the
same variations occur as in the above example.

Your solar system should be sized well above 1.8 or 2.9kW to provide for other appliances and rainy
and overcast days. Your solar panels will produce the power quoted only in ideal conditions when
the sun is shining at a perpendicular angle to your panels. Your fridge will need around 1kW of
power when it operates and your oven and microwave around 2kW.

Author: Christopher Siddons, Hydrosol, 19/644 Chapel Street, South Yarra (Melbourne), Victoria,
Australia 3141.

For more information: www.hydrosol.com.au