Are Heat Pump Geysers the new CFL of the hot water industry?

Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL) has changed the domestic and industrial lighting arena for ever, saving consumers money by the bucket load. Can this be done for the domestic and industrial water heating arena as well?

Is there a system or device like the CFL where you can take a 60Watt incandescent bulb and replace it with a 15Watt CFL and which can give similar energy saving ratios for the purpose of water heating?

We spoke to Julian Burch from Green Geysers at the Home Expo recently and according to him "heat pump geysers are the CFL of hot water systems".

Now this is a strong statement to make. Heat pump geysers are not that well known and they seems to have emerged on the local market only recently.

This is not necessarily true; Julian commented further "as a matter of fact heat pumps have been in existence for as long as the fridge has been in existence". According to him a heat pump is, as a matter of fact, a fridge in reverse, instead of cooling, heating is now the output medium and cooling a by-product of the whole process.

He stated the beneficial facts of heat pump geysers as follow:

• Electricity is not used to heat the water in the geyser. Electricity is only used to facilitate the heat exchange between the water inside the geyser and the surrounding environment. This is where the energy saving takes place in heat pump geysers, up to a 70% saving is accomplished compared to a standard electrical geyser.

• Your existing geyser can be retrofitted, no need to replace it. Panels on the roof are not required as used in solar geyser systems.

• The installation of the heat pump geyser is small and neatly done.

• Works irrespective of weather conditions, night and day, winter or summer.

• Low maintenance required.

• Water temperature is settable via a remote control panel.

Our next obvious question is the cost of this investment and the recovery period involved before the savings in your electrical bill will reach the break even point.

Julian responded with the following:

"First off it is important that consumers realize that a heat pump geyser is an investment in their family's financial well being in the long term, the cost is less than half that of a comparable solar geyser system and the investment can be recuperated within a typical time period of 2 to 4 years.

Solar geyser systems have a recuperating period of between 6 to 8 years (after the rebate has been applied) and this is due to solar systems only having an average energy saving of 50% (fact).

ESKOM is currently allowing a rebate on commercial heat pump geysers and is also considering a rebate on domestic heat pump geyser systems."

Our conclusion therefore is that a heat pump geyser system, as an investment, will save consumers a fortune in their electricity bill, which is very note worthy if you consider that the next ESKOM tariff increase is already looming around the corner.

The water heating part of the electricity bill in the average household is about 40%, if you take the 70% saving of a heat pump geyser, it then equates to a 30% monetary saving per month on your electricity bill.

For more information regarding heat pump geyser systems, Julian and his colleagues at Green Geysers can be contacted on 011-704-7015 or visit their website at http://greengeysers.co.za.