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by 1ncorrect 1248 days ago
I’ve been wondering for a while now if it would be worth coupling a heat pump coils to the heat sinks of a battery, inverter or other building electronics to help offset the diminishing returns at the lower extremes.

The simplest example would be a heat pump with its own built in UPS style battery, but I also see it being built with coupling to a power wall style house battery.
1 comments
blitzar 1248 days ago
In summer yes, but efficiency is not a problem then. In winter those are providing ambient heat within your property anyway.
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1ncorrect 1247 days ago
This equipment would be installed outside, the difference being to position it near, or coupled to, the compression loop of the heat pump. When the pump is running, it draws from the battery, which will need to dissipate heat through its operation. Why not capture that heat and redirect it where desired.

In summer, you could decouple it and use standard separate heat dissipation mechanisms.

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blitzar 1247 days ago
A black body catching some rays would give a decent boost (for part of the day at least) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtfaZMahSUU - just putting the split unit somewhere that catches the sunshine would probably be a non negligible positive!

Once we go down the heat extraction / transfer path some interesting efficiencies should crop up - any waste heat (higher than ambient temperature) exiting a property could reasonably be captured and used.

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