Panasonic heat pumps provide the perfect sustainable solution

When Cambridgeshire housing provider Luminus Group required a sustainable heating and hot water system for their new development of apartments in Wisbech, Panasonic’s Aquarea range of air source heat pumps fitted the bill perfectly.

The Ferry Project is a charity within the Luminus Group that helps homeless single adults in the Fenland area, by providing both emergency accommodation and longer-term help. The aim of the charity is to help people achieve independent living with a home of their own and equip them with essential life skills.

A three storey block of flats owned by the group was identified as the location for a new residential site for the charity. The property has been converted into a six flat development consisting of ten bedrooms together with shared communal kitchens, bathrooms and living rooms.

It was important that heating and hot water costs were kept to a minimum and ensure hot water supply could meet the demand, so Luminus chose Panasonic’s Aquarea High Temperature 12kW split units as it met their requirement for a consistent high flow temperature, would be space saving and reduce the running costs associated with electric storage heating.

Commenting on the installation, Mark Diaz, UK and Ireland Country Manager of Panasonic Heating & Cooling explains: “We were delighted that Luminus chose to install our Aquarea HT heat pump range in their new development. The HT’s ability to provide hot water up to 65°C made it an ideal choice for this installation where they had specific high flow temperature requirements. We developed the Aquarea HT heat pump to answer the demand for a truly “green” heating system, which is much more flexible and cost-effective than a traditional fossil fuel boiler.”

John Conroy, Maintenance Manager at the Luminus Group said “Luminus Group is committed to providing a premium brand service to our customers. When we looked at a sustainable heating and hot water system for our apartments in Wisbech, we wanted a company that shared our vision and were able to supply an innovative solution. The success of this project was due to an excellent product underpinned by great teamwork.”

The Aquarea HT offers outstanding performance, even at very low outside temperatures. The HT can produce 65°C hot water even down to -15°C. The HT is also very quiet in operation with no noise inside the house as there is no double stage compression.

Panasonic has achieved excellent performance using only single stage compression by optimising the Aquarea HT for use with the environment-friendly refrigerant gas R407C. R407C works on much higher temperatures than R410A, which means the HT can produce hot water at 65°C using only one stage of compression while still maintaining high system efficiency.

Aquarea HT also employs Panasonic’s patented SCEB (Sub-Cooler plus Evaporator Bypass) cycle to achieve high heating capacity performance even at low ambient temperatures, meaning that no electric heater back-up is required, even at minus 15°C.