What is IHT best suited to?
IHT™ can save over 80% of carbon emissions compared to using standard air conditioning and chillers for cooling.
IHT™ from ICAX is most efficient when incorporated into new buildings at the planning stage. It works on buildings of every scale, especially those designed to have high thermal mass and efficient insulation.
Where is it currently used? - Howe Dell School, Toddington, Garth Prison and Hiroshima.
ICAX Limited is pleased to have provided Interseasonal Heat Transfer to Howe Dell School, Hatfield, to enable the school to be heated in the winter with heat captured by the school playground in the previous summer.
This revolutionary patented technology has been developed over ten years by ICAX Limited to provide on-site renewable energy to heat buildings in winter without burning fossil fuels.
The essence of IHT is that solar heat can be collected from dark surfaces (like roads, car parks or playgrounds) by an array of pipes embedded beneath the surface. The heat is stored in an insulated Heat Bank in the ground and retrieved to heat the building in winter.
Using smart control technology, the system enhances the performance of Ground Source Heat Pumps. A standard GSHP extracts warmth from the ground and separates this into heat (used to heat a building) and cold (which is returned to the ground). The heat pump, which can yield four kilowatts of heat at a cost of one kilowatt of electricity, is deemed to have a Coefficient of Performance ("CoP") of 4. However, a GSHP needs to pump harder as the ground gets colder as heat is extracted and therefore the CoP of the Heat Pump is likely to fall over the winter season as a whole. Heat is “borrowed” from the ground and creates a thermal “overdraft” in the ground. A GSHP relies on heat gradually migrating back into the thermal overdraft created.
An IHT system differs from a standard GSHP system in that heat is actively “deposited” in the Thermal Bank in advance of the winter season. This greatly reduces the work required of the heat pump to provide heat to the building the following winter. In engineering terms the seasonal Coefficient of Performance of the heat pump is increased from around 2.6 times to around 5.2 times. This transforms the economics of using a Heat Pump.
IHT™ can save over 50% of carbon emissions compared to using a gas boiler for heating.
This radical new thermal storage technology is ready to help you address the issue of global warming in a practical, efficient and proven way. Please email us for further details before you embark on constructing new buildings.
See also: Renewable Heat
See also: Banking on IHT