South Korea’s LG Electronics has developed an air source heat pump with the capacity to heat 200 litre to 270 litre of domestic water. It uses R134a as a refrigerant and the pump has a coefficient of performance (COP) of up to 3.85. It has presented a new line of water heating heat pumps for residential applications. They can be installed in garages, kitchens, laundry rooms, or bathrooms.
The Therma V comes in two versions, with the capacity to heat 200 litres or 270 litres of water. The 200-litre model has a COP of 3.30 at 7 C and 3.50 at 15 C. The 270-litre model has a COP of 3.45 at 7 C and 3.85 at 15 C.The electric heat pumps have a power input of 2 kW at 230 V. The 200-litre model has an annual energy consumption of 756 kWh at 7 C and 709 kWh at 15 C.
As per reports, the larger model consumes 712 kWh per year at 7 C, and 646 kWh per year at 15 C. The air source heat pump uses 75 per cent of energy from the air and only 25 per cent of electricity to heat water. It features LG’s Dual inverter compressor, which works with twin rotors. As twin rotaries balance each other while they are rotating with high speed, it reduces noise. The heat pump produces noise at 53 dBA, which is the equivalent of refrigerator noise.