Residential heat pump installations: the role of vocational education and training
This article presents a short summary of: 'Residential heat pump installations: the role of vocational education and training', by Colin Patrick Gleeson. It originally appeared in Building Research & Information, in September 2015 and is available online at: DOI:10.1080/09613218.2015.1082701.
Meeting European emissions targets is reliant on innovative renewable technologies, particularly ‘renewable heat’ from heat pumps.
Heat pumps transfer heat from a lower-temperature source to one of a higher temperature. This is the opposite of the natural flow of heat. Heat pumps can be used to extract heat from sources such as the ground, air or water which can be used to provide hot water, space heating or used for other applications such as heating swimming pools.
Heat pump performance is driven by Carnot efficiency (the differential between input and output temperatures), and optimum performance requires the lowest possible space heating flow temperatures. This means that heat pump performance is highly sensitivity to poor design and installation. The correct operation of heating system controls is also critical to performance and this places additional demands on installers in terms of commissioning and handover instructions.
Gleeson’s paper raises concerns about the adequacy of vocational training and skills for installing residential air heat pumps. It suggests that few UK installers have formal heat pump qualifications at National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) level 3 and that heat pump vocational education and training is generally delivered through short-course provision where the structure of training is largely unregulated with no strict adherence to a common syllabus or a detailed training centre specification. Prerequisites for short-course trainees is limited and proof of ‘experience’ is an accepted alternative to formal educational qualifications.
The paper suggests that the lack of broader educational content and deficiencies in engineering knowledge will have profound negative impacts on the performance and market acceptance of heat pumps.
A range of possible futures are identified to address these problems.
Click here to read the full paper.
--Building_Research_&_Information
[edit] Find out more
[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki:
- Absorption heat pump.
- Air source heat pumps.
- Coefficient of Performance CoP.
- Domestic heat pumps and the electricity supply system.
- Dynamic thermal modelling of closed loop geothermal heat pump systems.
- Earth-to-air heat exchangers.
- Ground source heat pumps.
- Heat exchanger.
- Heat pump.
- Heat recovery.
- Phase change.
- Renewable energy sources: how they work and what they deliver: Part 3: Electrically driven heat pumps DG 532 3.
- Water source heat pumps.
Featured articles and news
Dos and don'ts for creating a smart home.
New ICE publication recommends pay-as-you-go tax to fund roads and other financing options.
BSRIA launches a White Paper on wearable technology and wellbeing in buildings.
Have the pressures of the market shredded the core values of professionalism?
Lead times are a measure of the amount of time that elapses between initiating and completing a construction process.
Government releases first tranche of funding for removal of unsafe high-rise cladding.
How to ensure UK transport infrastructure copes with severe winter weather.
Location shortlist for controversial new footbridge revealed.
Under the Party Wall Act a property owner has the legal right to do works that might otherwise constitute trespass or nuisance.
The talent pool in the LGBT community
The rainbow JCB will be making a welcome return to the London Build Expo on 23 and 24 October at Olympia.