The European Heating Industry (EHI) recently released a paper entitled: “Heat emitters: The forgotten part of the energy efficiency equation” – and has outlined the summary below.
Installing efficient heat emitters – be they efficient radiators, convectors or surface heating and cooling – will be quintessential to improve the efficiency of Europe’s old building stock. These improvements must be coherent with the customer’s wish of thermal comfort. Therefore, to achieve the twin goals of saving energy as well as guaranteeing thermal comfort, heat emitters will need to play an essential role.
For EHI, a wider penetration of efficient heat emitters needs to be an integral part of Europe’s ambition to achieve 30% energy efficiency gains by 2030. With millions of inefficient heating appliances installed in Europe’s buildings today, the focus must be to improve the situation by adopting the whole heating system approach.
Why is taking a ‘whole system’ approach so important? EHI stresses that heating a building should be understood as a system – heat should not only be generated in the most efficient way possible. Efficiently distributing and emitting heat around the building is equally important. Promoting efficient heat emitters can improve the efficiency of heating systems as well as enable renewable heat appliances to find their place in the market. A heating system can run most efficiently when all its components are designed to work together. Therefore, a low-temperature heat generator (heat pump or condensing boiler) needs to be combined with low-temperature heat emitters in order to achieve the highest levels of energy efficiency.
“European policy-makers need to turn their ‘energy efficiency first’ rhetoric into action. Improving the energy performance of a building will involve a modernisation of the whole heating system, which must include the heat emitters. In doing so, this will also achieve the desired comfort for the user,” specifies Klaus Rogetzer, Group Managing Director Central Rettig ICC.
The ongoing review of the European Union’s Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, the Renewable Energy Directive and the Energy Efficiency Directive offers an opportunity to raise the awareness about the importance of efficient heating systems in general and efficient heat emitters in particular. EHI recalls that buildings account for 36% of EU emissions and that heating and hot water typically account for about 85% of the energy consumption of a building.
David Kerr, CEO at QRL Radiator Group, welcomes the announcement by the EHI: “As members of the EHI, it’s very encouraging to see it highlight such a crucial industry issue – one that we at QRL are helping push to top of the agenda with our ‘Don’t Omit Emitters’ campaign. We are working hard to communicate the importance of emitters as part of a ‘whole system’ approach to heating efficiency, and we’re delighted to have an industry body such as the EHI recognise these as the ‘missing link’ in improving energy efficiency.
“With millions of UK households still relying on outdated, inefficient radiator technology to heat their homes – at extra cost – there is still a long way to go. However, the issue is undeniably gaining traction amongst industry peers and we welcome the EHI’S “Heat emitters: The forgotten part of the energy efficiency equation” paper. Ultimately, it’s about improving performance, reducing emissions and cutting bills for end-users, and we will continue to fight to keep the emitter efficiency discussion front of mind.”
For further reading: EHI paper “Heat emitters: The forgotten part of the energy efficiency equation” is available at: www.ehi.eu/event/3153
