Moving in the right direction

Event 1: Low energy usage = higher value of the house
When consumers are looking for a new home, they should be able to see the energy requirement in the house for sale. The Liberal-Conservative government in Denmark will now make it a legal obligation on estate agents to advertise with the energyquotient (energy usage per square meter) of homes for sale.

Comment 1: We welcome energyquotients
All efforts that will incentivate families to isolate and perform other tasks that will reduce the power used for heating/cooling their houses are most welcome. If all the houses sold are marked with a energyquotient - the market will gradually adjust and the sellers with the most energy-efficient houses will get more for their houses.

I have previously argued that politicians should add incentives to kick-start homeowners, and the possible actions that have been discussed earlier are:

• Information campaign
• you save money, get an improved indoor climate and contribute to "saving the planet" as a bonus
• Remove the most critical hurdle (the high up-front investment that scares most homeowners)    
• Cheap loans for home improvement projects focused on energy efficiency (ref interest free loans over 10 years in France)
• Reduce the price of these projects 
• Capital grants: Enova in Norway can for certain type of projects grant up to 1000 USD (but this program does not include isolation, air-to-air heatpumps, or ventilation systems)      
• Tax benefits (remove VAT on these products, and give homeowners a taxrelief if their house is energy efficient - ref USA)
• Improve the benefits for such projects
• Increase the price of electrical power (for Norway this means, get in synch with EU): This will cause many projects aimed at reducing the use of electrical power to get a short return on investment (ROI). What you pay per year to the bank for the related "jahus" loan (in Norway: "Husbanken", I hope...) will only be a fraction higher than what you save on your yearly electricity bill. 
• Introduce the energyquotient as a mandatory element of all house sale transactions: this will further incentivate homeowners who initiate "jahus" projects - because the value of the house increases. This benefit will more than make up for the gap mentioned above (loan payments vs savings on the yearly electricity bill)          
• Not all benefits can be measured in dollars: you get improved indoor climate (and hence better health), and good conscience as a result of the fact that the family contributes to the global efforts to save the planet.      

In Norway, it is mandatory to include such a energyquotient for all house sale transactions from July 1st 2010. The system includes energy quotients from A and B (will only be given to the so-called low-energy and passive houses), while houses built by today's standards will generally get C and D. The three lowest grades are awarded to older houses that are not repaired ("nei-hus"). To read more on this topic (in Norwegian):
"Nå skal huset ditt energimerkes"
"Energimerking av hus" (Enova)

Jahus Progress (part 2):
The Project Leader now told us to power on the aggregate again - they had just forgot to do that yesterday.

He also told us to remove the ice under the heatpump and then turn it back on. It does not seem to bother him that the company that imports these heatpumps told us to first thaw the heatpump with hot water or a hairdryer on a long extension cord (to remove all the ice from the outlets for the condensated water and the air intake on the side).

After months of trying, I finally received a response directly from the manufacturer of the ventilation aggregate. He told us that our aggregate can be managed by a central management system based in for example input from a CO2 meter - when the air quality is bad, the aggregate increases the amount of fresh air that is delivered to the house and vice versa. I have also found a couple of companies who can deliver the required networking CO2 sensors. This might be the next project once the current project has been completed.

I also asked him about the problem (described earlier) when the aggregate stops operating below -10C (the rotating heat exchanger stops rotating). I hope that this direct contact works better and faster than the current support line via the ventilation team that installed the appliance.           


  
      

Ventilation system and heatpump switched off

Jahus progress:
Yesterday (27.jan) the Project Leader and the ventilation subcontractor visited our house to discuss the remaining tasks and come up with a project plan with milestones (and who should do what). This is good news and I hope to see some action in the coming weeks.

As described in a previous blog post, we have seen ice build-up on the intake of the heatpump outside. Yesterday, the company responsible for import of these heatpumps to Norway called me. He explained that during extremely cold weather the condensated water which normally falls freely from the heatpump to the ground (and flows away), will build up inverted icicles. When they reach the outlet for the condensated water (ca 0.5m), the water has nowhere to flow but out through the air-intake. The last picture attached to the previous blog post clearly show these icicles and the condensated water that has frozen in the air-intake. He told me to switch of the heatpump immediately to avoid further ice-building on the heatpump outside.

This message is definitely different from the message I got from the local ventilation subcontractor - he said that the ice problem is normal and nothing to worry about (and he told us to leave the heatpump fully operational). I am now waiting for further instructions and expect them to remove the ice from the heatpump before they try to start it again.
        
The other strange thing was that they pulled the plug on the ventilation aggregate (no power). They have not told us why, but at the moment we have no ventilation system and no heatpump :-(

         

The 31 of January Deadline

Event 1: The BASIC countries met in India
The BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China), functioning as a cohesive group, made important and constructive contributions at the recently concluded 15th Conference of the Parties (COP-15) in Copenhagen. The second meeting of Ministers of the four BASIC group countries  took place in New Delhi on the 24th of January. 

The Indian Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, and the other four Ministers re-emphasised their commitment to working together with all other countries to ensure an agreed outcome at COP-16 in Mexico later this year.

1. The Ministers expressed their intention to communicate information on their voluntary mitigation actions to the UNFCCC by 31 January 2010. In doing so, they put pressure on the developed countries to communicate their mitigation actions by the 31 January deadline as well.   
2. The Ministers called for the early flow of the pledged $10 billion in 2010 with focus on the least developed countries, small island developing states and countries of Africa, as proof of their commitment to urgently address the global challenge of climate change.

Joint statement by the BASIC group countries, New Delhi 25.1. 2010
 
Comment 1:

It is an interesting observation that the leaders in this process seems to be the BASIC group countries and USA - while the European Union is waiting outside in the hallway with the rest of world (even if the EU countries are the most agressive in fighting dramatic climate changes).       
Event 2: Home retrofit program in USA
Secretary Steven Chu of the Department of Energy list three major energy initiatives for 2010:

1. Home retrofit program: "will save energy costs for millions of americans" (an of course reduce the record high CO2 footprint of the average american family.
2. New ways of funding new energy projects: will increase the amount of renewable energy in USA
3. Restart the nuclear energy program  

Link to the White House 2010 Cabinet Reports

Comment 2: 
For followers of this blog it comes as no surprise that the new home retrofit program in USA is good news for us. Why? We have argued that the most effective CO2/energy reduction efforts ("low hanging fruit") is to fix all the draughty and energy wasting houses. These "JAHUS" projects will result in higher tonnes of CO2 (or TWh) per dollar than all fancy renewable energy projects.

I do not mean that all renewable energy projects should be stopped, we do of course need both projects that reduce energy demand (and hence CO2/GHG emissions) - AND projects that ultimately will provide us with more non-fossil fuel energy. It is, however, a mismatch between dollars allocated to renewables (which, might, some time in the future, result in a commercial production of renewable energy) - and government dollars allocated to kick-start the implementation of energy saving efforts in private homes (which are based on known and available technology and will give immediate effect).

Norway's leading financial newspaper, DN, recently said "the most climate-friendly energy - is the the energy not being used". (Gets thumbs up from me :-)

JAHUS progress:
On Monday it was-9.6C outside and the fan was on all day (ading heated air to the ventilation system) and the ventilation aggregate (w/heat exchanger) was running on "normal" effect. When I came home from work, I checked the attic and found that the temperature was 5.5 C !

The temperature in the attic should of course be much closer to the outside temperature. A temperature difference of above 15C is way too much (energy is wasted and it is causing a major icicles problem). I am looking forward to the day the ventilation team fixes this problem (and the other tasks in the backlog).

   

More trouble from above

Progress:
Still no sign of progress - but on Thursday, the project leader stopped by and saw with his own eyes the long icicles hanging from our roof. It may be difficult to notice on the attached picture, but there are no icicles on our neighbor's house. After the visit, he said that they agree that this must be fixed (free of charge) and that the solution is adding more isolation to the pipes on the attic (so that the ventilation system looses less heat to the attic).

He also heard (for the first time) the noice from the fan that blows heated air (from the heatpump) into the ventilation system. Afterwards he said that this must be fixed. He has now told us that he will get the ventilation subcontractor to come to the house again next week to discuss the remaining tasks.

During the weekend I have been outside to check out the status of the heatpump. I was surprised to find more than 75% of the intake covered with ice! (see the attached pictures)

The intake is where the heatpump sucks in  air before it "heats up"  the coolant and is blown out again even colder than when it was sucked in (normal heatpump process). Is this normal maintenance or an issue that needs to be resolved? I have forwarded this information to the ventilation team and asked for advice (they have not told us to regularly check the heatpump and remove ice from the intake).

     

Unexpected trouble from above

Progress:
There is no progress to report today. I have, however, included a picture of record size icicles that are hanging from our roof these days - to raise a question about the effects of the isolation efforts we have done.

The experts say that icicles are a sign of a badly isolated house - and the reason being that too much heat comes through the roof and melts the snow that is lying there on the roof. Because the outdoor is below zero - this water freezes on its way from the roof down the icicles (causing the size to increase every day).           

The strange thing is that we have never had as much- and as long icicles hanging from our roof. It is actually dangerous to enter the house these days, with icicles of up to 1 m hanging 5-6 meters above the entrance area. None of our neighbors (who live in almost identical houses) have nearly as much icicles as us. Why?

As part of the JAHUS project, we paid them to add an extra layer of isolation on top of the the isolation that already was on top of the ceiling (the floor in the attic). We also paid them to replace the old loft hatch to reduce the heat loss to the attic. These efforts should have reduced the amount of icicles - not resulted in the opposite effect.

The only reason I can find for this unexpected effect is that the there is heatloss from the ventilation system that has been introduced in the attic. Inside the pipes there is air flowing at approximately 20C and if the isolation is too thin or ineffective, the considerable amount of piping in the attic will cause the temperature in the attic (and therefore on the roof) to be higher than previous winters dispite our efforts to improve isolation. The pictures below show the piping on the attic and the black "floor" is the new layer of isolation (notice that there is no isolation on the roof).   
    
I have contacted the ventilation team to explain this and ask for advice. Did they expect this? Will they fix it - or tell us to "live with it"?    

Errors and lies thrive in cold weather

Events: Is global warming fact or fiction? Yesterday, I referred to Nikolai Astrup who said that the momentum for fighting dramatic climate changes suffer each time we experience cold winters or bad (cold/wet) summers. I have included a link to an interesting article on this topic because it explains why this is happening: errors and lies thrive in cold weather

Events: Are we heading for an energy crisis?
As Helge Lund said yesterday, the world consumes 85-million barrels per day and because production from existing oilfields drops 7.5% per year - the industry has to add 45 million barrels per day just to meet the demand today.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects demand for oil to hit 105-million barrels per day by 2030 (largely due to higher demand from developing countries - caused by more people and higher standard of living). Add these 20 million barrels to the 45 million barrels mentioned above and we get an extra demand of 65 million barrel of oil per day. This extra supply has to come from other sources than where we get our 85 million barrels today and IEA says it’s not clear how this gap will be filled.

Note: you can watch the whole session on "Energy in the future" on YouTube (in norwegian only).

Progress:
One guy from the ventilation subcontractor showed up today - and he added a thicker layer of isolation on the air intake. On the coldest days we had noticed that there was ice building on the outside of the isolation - and this problem should now be history.

To help us follow-up on the remaining tasks on the to-do list, I have included the list below. If you are interested then read on - if not you can skip the rest of this blog post :=)

1. The insulation around the pipes to / from the heat pump (thin copper tubes with coolant?) Is incomplete in several places: Fixed Jan 15th 
2. Grill in front of the exhaust outlet from the ventilation system has a large hole (where the thin tubes to the inside portion of the heat pump goes). Mice / rats can easily get into the house here: Fixed Jan 15th 
3. The fact that the unit stops at temperatures below-10C must of course be solved! (this point requires involvement from the supplier): Not fixed yet 
4. Remove the heat pump's outdoor unit from the wall or fix the noise problem in some other way (generates much more noise than other heat pumps): Not fixed yet
   
5. Do something with the noise from the two separate fans (and/or add extra noise protection in the closet as suggested earlier): The project leader and the subcontractor can't agree on whose responsibility this is. Not fixed yet   
6. Insulation on the exhaust pipe (where there was ice and condensation build-up when the air draft was under 0C): Fixed
7. It is now so cold that there is ice building outside the insulation (see attached picture): Fixed Jan 15th 
8. Complete the solution that removes condensation from the inside portion of the heat pump (the plastic pipe just hanging loose inside the cabinet in our WC):  Not fixed yet 
9. Is the actual effect of the unit (m3 per hour) according to manufacturer's specification? There was 2800 ppm CO2 with 20 people in the room (while the ventilation was running at maximum speed): Not fixed yet
10. Is it possible to do something about heat loss from the unit to the living room? (Ie adding insulation on pipes in the ventilation room where the temperature is only 10C and/or in the shed where it also is below 15C?): The subcontractor says that this has a high cost and only limited effect.   
11. Decorative: the ventilation hatch in the ceiling above the oven (as discussed at inspection). Can it moved slightly to one side and thus cover the unsightly open slot on the side of the hatch? Not fixed yet
12. And when everything is ready; training in the use and maintenance (cleaning procedures and setting the weekly program on the heat pump, etc.): Not done yet  

Energy for the Future

Progress:
Still no progress in our "JAHUS".

Event: Energy for the Future

How do we cover the future energy needs, AND solve the climate crisis? We were not given the final answer in Copenhagen. What does this mean for the energy sector's challenges? What does it mean for our climate?

This morning I had the pleasure of attending a meeting with the above mentioned agenda. The chief executive officer of Statoil, Helge Lund was there to give the opening speach and professor at the University of Oslo, Dag Harald Claes, was invited to comment on the speach by Helge Lund. Secretary General of the Red Cross and former Minister of the Environment, Børge Brende was also invited - but he had to fly to Haiti this morning to lead rescue efforts following the earthquake yesterday. In his place, they managed to get Nikolai Astrup is member of parliament and in the energy and environment committee, deputy chairman of the Oslo Conservatives Party (Høyre).

I found the speaches and discussions very interesting, and have therefore included highlight below (assuming also readers of this blog are interested in the questions of energy supply and climate changes).

Helge Lund first talked about the common misconception that we are running out of oil in a few years - and Dag Harald Claes later on referred to numbers from BP that there are reserves (including estimates for future discovery of new oilfields) to last an estimated 40 years with todays level of production. "The interesting thing" said the professor, "is that BP in 1980 said that it would last only 20 years". 

During the questions and answers session at the end, there was a comment about the middle-east countries manipulating the numbers (size of oil reserves) to get the oil-price they want. Both Helge Lund and Dag Harald Claes agreed with the statement that estimates of reserves in Saudi Arabia is largely a political question.    

It is, however, a fact that the new oil reserves Statoil finds these days are smaller and the oil more expensive to produce (deeper waters, colder etc.). Combine this with the increase in demand expected over the next 20 years and you get a big challenge. Why will the demand for energy increase by almost 50% by 2030 (fossil fuels included, both for transportation, heating and for generating electricity) ?

• By 2030 they estimate that the people living on this globe will have almost doubled (to ca 10 billion)
• Today there are 1.6 billion people without electrical power. More of the developing countries will "develop" and their people will get access to electricity, own a car and buy "more stuff" (take China for example, who now have bypassed USA as number 1 on the list of countries with the most new cars sold per year)   

Helge Lund mentoned that the oil companies have to bring to the market an additional 45 million barrels of oil per day by 2030, just to meet todays demand for oil (need to replace the reduction in production from the current oil fields). Given that the total oil production today is approximately 80 million barrels per day - we understand that this is a big challenge.

He also claimed that petroleum is the best carrier of energy known today and referred to the energy needed in a car during a normal year: to replace the gasoline one would have to grow biodiesel material (sugercane etc) on farmland equal to 35 acres, or dig out 450 kg of coal. It takes ca 5 seconds on the Grane oilfield to produce the oil needed for one car/year. His claim was that it is not easy to replace the oil that fuels the machinery of our planet - and demand for fossil fuels will be there for a long time even with the climate changes being high on the political agenda.

So we need fossil fuels, but what can Statoil and its competitors do - to also do their fair share of fighting dramatic climate changes due largely to emissions from burning fossil fuels?

Helge Lund said that they have for a long time used the norwegian tax of 350 NOK/ton of CO2 as input to their project calculations. This results in best in class numbers for CO2 emissions per produced barrel of oil (7 tons) - much better than for example oil from Nigeria (40 tons).

They also engage in projects for capture and storage of CO2, and renewable energy (i.e. offshore wind farms). Statoil has market leading skills in operations offshore and can utilize this to win new business in wind farms and wave energy. This will not help Norway cut CO2 emissions, but it can generate new business - AND - it is a fact that global warming and the expected energy crisis is a global challenge. Helping UK cut CO2 emissions (look at the blog post from yesterday to read more) is just as valuable as cutting CO2 here in Norway.

The projects in UK are based on wind-mills that stand on the bottom of the ocean - but Statoil is also involved in the Hywind project which is a full-scale pilot involving a floating (!) wind mill. They say that each such windmill should be able to generate 2.3MW (or 230 houses who uses 10KW each). With Statoil putting 400 MNOK into Hywind and Enova and others add ca 100MNOK - the price per W is very high: 0.0008 W/USD (compared to the estimated cost at Doggerbank of 0,18W/USD). This is, however, a pilot and price per produced W will of course come down before this becomes a commercial product.

Nikolai Astrup also commented on the fact that the yearly tax- and dividends from Statoil make Norway a very rich country and this enables us to launch expensive research and development projects such as the CO2- capture and storage project (25 000 MNOK or ca 4 000 MUSD).

OK, so it will be very difficult for the transportation industry to replace fossil fuels quickly, but can (and should) we look at other sectors with high energy demand - like the way we produce and use electricity?

Dag Harald Claes later on said that coal was used for 75% of all electricity produced in 1970, and that it is now down to being used as fuel fir a third of all electricity produced. It is, however, also a fact that the consumption of electricity have increased. The net of this is that the use of coal for generating electricity has tripled in the same period (!) To illustrate: China opens on average a coal fired power plant each week.

Electricity generation using carbon based fuels is responsible for a large fraction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions worldwide; and for 41% of U.S. man-made carbon dioxide emissions. Of fossil fuels, coal combustion in thermal power stations result in greater amounts of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of electricity generated (2249 lbs/MWh) while oil produces less (1672 lbs/MWh) and natural gas produces the least (1135 lbs/MWh).

Helge Lund followed up with comments on gas (in the intersection between the issue of energy shortages and climate changes). "The importance of natural gas is grossly underestimated" he said, and "the United States could be energy self-sufficient for a 100 years if they managed to migrate to natural gas". He also mentioned the amount of CO2 cuts we could get from increased export of natural gas from Norway to Europe if it was used for replacing coal as the fuel for powerplants (50% reduction in CO2 emissions). He claimed the savings would be more than the total CO2 emissions from Norway. I know where he's coming from (want to sell gas), but still...

Nikolai Astrup was part of the norwegian delegation to COP15 in Copehagen in December and he admitted that the COP15 unfortunately didn't give the results he had hoped for. He also looked back to Kyoto - were the countries signed the Kyoto Protocol and then went back and did nothing (ref. Canada who has increased their CO2 emissions and have not come close to what they comitted to in Kyoto).

There is political will in EU to cut CO2 emissions and the UK wind farm project mentioned is one example. Nikolai Astrup said that EU is good at both promising CO2 cuts and delivering on their promise - while Norway is good at promising deep cuts, but show little in terms of actions that will generate the required CO2 cuts.

The recent cold weather here in Europe (or a bad/cold summer) makes many people think that the global warming is just fiction - and they are not motivated to go the extra mile "to save the planet". What they forget is that the temperature in the Arctic is 5C warmer (and many other scientific reports that documents the effects of global warming. 


Astrup says that he thinks that we need a new framework that will make more homeowners - isolate their houses and replace their oil-fueled heating with biomass and/or heatpumps. He must be referring to the financial help homeowners get in France (interest-free loans of 30.000 Euros for 10 years) and tax relief in USA. We need these types of start help to get the "ball rolling"....

Nikolai Astrup also commented on many interesting facts such as:

• EU has a goal of 20% renewable energy, but Norway is already at 60% due to our hydroelectric powerplants (water coming down from the mountains)  
• If we don't increase our ability to transfer clean energy to Europe, the effect of our energy saving efforts will be energy surplus and lower prices
• On the production of aluminum (Norsk Hydro) he said that the CO2 emissions per ton of aluminum produced with coal-based electricity is 8 tonnes and with hydro electrical power it is 2 tonnes. He wants rules and regulations that cuts the CO2 emissions - not move it (to a country where they have different CO2 pricing). 
• Renewable investment does not provide gains in Norway. We also need actions that cuts CO2 in Norway like the house improvement projects - see "Klimakur" (in norwegian).   

Dag Harald Claes later on said:

• "Helge Lund can be disappointed with the results from COP15 (in terms of uncertainty associated with CO2 prices etc) - but he should be used to worse risks". International Energy Agency (IEA) has been very precise in predicting the demand of oil, but the price still fluctuates wildly (150 USD to 40 USD per barrel in just one year). He therfore claims that the normal market forces do not work in the oil sector (demand/supply)
• "Many of the worlds oil reserves are located in geographies where corruption is commonplace. Statoil faces the fact that their competitors go in - forcing Statoil to follow?". Helge Lund answered that new and very strict new anti-corruption laws in USA has changed the view on corruption in all the big oil companies. He therefore claims that even their competitors stay clear of anything that smells like corruption.          
• Why do people think that Statoil and Norway as major oil-producing nation/country should be in the frontline of finding a replacement for fossil fuels? "It does not make sense". 

Additional comments on JAHUS savings

Comments:
In a recent blog post I estimated the savings of our JAHUS project to approximately 5.8KW (effect of improved isolation, heatpump and the heatexchanger/ventilation system). Not all days of January will be below -10C, but the savings do not change dramatically from -15C to -5C:

• improved effect of the heatpump (COP goes from 2 to 3+) 
• slightly lower savings from the isolation and ventilation system
• 5KW as an average for January is probably a good estimate.          

The estimated total energy savings for a full year is 15.000 KWh. With the average total price of electricity (incl. a fixed cost per month for "rent of powerlines") at 0.85 NOK/KWh - the savings will be 12 750 NOK/year (or 2236 USD).

Note: We do, however, hope that the savings will be closer to 20.000 KWh, and this can only be verified when we get the invoices for the full year (and can compare with the relevant numbers from 2009).          

Progress:
No progress to report today.  

Renewable energy in the wind

Events:

On Friday (Jan 8th) UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown launched a £100bn programme to build more offshore wind farms. The map shows that the areas are spread around the coastline from Firth of Forth on the east coast of Scotland to the Irish Sea.

In total, the successful bidders (including Statkraft and Statoil from Norway) estimate the farms will generate 32 gigawatts of electricity. To put this in perspective, the total amount of energy currently being generated from all offshore wind farms in the world was 1.4 GW by the end of 2008.

32GW at a cost of £100bn (approx 1 000 000 MNOK) should give a price per GW of ca £3bn or 31 MNOK per MW. I have previously read articles that suggest that the price of 1 MW from a windfarm costs 30 MNOK - which is amazingly close to the numbers presented from UK.

Read more about this interesting project on BBCs website.

Comments:
In an earlier blog post I estimated the total energy savings in our house to 30.000 KWh/year. This equals 3 KW as a yearly average - and the price for these energy savings was approximately 60.000 USD. Divide one by the other and you get 0,05W/USD as the price for our JAHUS project.

Just for fun I wanted to compare that to the price of renewable projects as the one mentioned above. There they expect to produce 32GW of clean and renewable energy for the price of £100bn (or approximately 175 150 MUSD). The calcualted price for this energy is: 0,18 W/USD (3 times more efficient than our JAHUS project).

We do not produce electricity, but reduce the demand by 30.000 KWh per year. The savings are, however, not equally distributed - we have more savings during winter (when there is much demand and high prices), and lower/no savings during warm summer months. The wind farms produces electricity when there is wind (and in these areas that means pretty much year around). It is therefore not correct to say that a JAHUS project is 3 times more expensive per KW saved/produced.

Norway has high mountains and is blessed with hydro-electric power (water from the mountains runs through turbines that generate clean and renewable energy). As mentioned in an earlier blog post, Norway is therefore well positioned for a role as the "battery of Europe" - supply of clean energy when there isn't enough wind to generate 32GW from these wind farms.   

Progress:
The aggregate stopped again yesterday - so I had to "pull the plug" and let it rest for a while. Later in the evening it started again and has been running since then. I told the project leader yesterday, but it obviously didn't help - because there wasn't any progress today.

Using 5,8KW less for heating during a cold January day

Progress:
Unfortunately, the progress from Thursday did not continue on Friday (nobody showed up to finish the work).

The last few days have been very cold, and as a result the aggregate stopped again today. Included below are the temperature statistics from these last cold days (with temperatures below -20C) and when the aggregate ran as it is supposed to:    

The last columns represent the results:

• Input air: this is the temperature of the fresh air that the ventilation systems sends out in the living room (after the heat exchanger and after the heated air from the heatpump has been added)
• Exhaust air: this is the temperature of the "used" air that leaves the house. When we lived in a "nei hus" ("no house") the temperature of the air leaving the house was 20C, but with the heat exchanger - the results show that we have managed to lower the temperature by as much as 26.9C (to -6.9C)
• Delta: shows a calculated difference between the outside temperature and the exhaust air (the lower values are the best - because we manage to transfer most of the energy from the exhaust air to the incomming fresh air)

I also wanted to estimate the savings of the new ventilation system compared with traditional air hatches. The assumptions and calculations are included below:

•  Previously, the recirculation of air was done through traditional air hatches
• The temperature of the "used air" that left the house through these air hatches was approximately 21C 
• We estimate that we have approximately 650 cubic meters of air in the house
• The ventilation system changes 350 cubic meters of air per hour at normal effect, and at maximum effect it can change 500 cubic meters of air  
• The volumetric heat capacity (VHC) for air: 0.001297 J/(cm3*K) and this translates to 126W/K for 350 cubic meters per hour  
• On the coldest day the temperature difference between "normal" exit temperature (+21C) and the JAHUS exit temperature (-13C) was 34K
• The calculated energy savings of the ventilation system was 4.3KW (at 350 cubic meters per hour)     
• Add to the 4.3KW the savings of the heatpump: at these low temperatures the heatpump effect is lower and the 1.5KW "put into" the heatpump we get approximately 3KW of heated air - a saving of "only" 1.5KW => a total saving of 5.8KW for heatpump and ventilation
• On top of the 5.8KW savings we can add the reduction in heating requirement caused by improved isolation (changed windows and doors, and added an extra layer if isolation in the cold attic): it is hard to measure the effect of the isolation efforts, but a low estimate is 1KW

The savings of 5.8KW during the cold days of January gives the following economic savings:

• Average price of electricity over a full year is 0.155 USD/KWh (0.85NOK/KWh - total delivered to a home in our area), but for January isolated the price is higher: 0.25 USD/KWh (1.4 NOK/KWh) 
• Hours in January = 744
• Estimated savings in January: 744hours* 5.8KW*0.2USD/KWh= 863 USD (4919 NOK)             

Where is the greenhouse effect?

Events: 

In Norway and most of Europe we have record low temperatures and the press picks up on the theme of many lunch discussions - what happened to the global warming? Is it just fiction that big global enterprises push on us to make huge profits from their products and services?

My personal comments are as follows: 

• Energy crisis: We are running out of fossil fuels and do not have enough alternative energy sources to meet the needs of current developed countries and the increased demand of China, India and other developing countries. I have found David MacKay's book "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air" very interesting because it quantifies the demand and how much alternative energy we can get from windmills etc. http://www.withouthotair.com/ 

• As a result of the above mentioned, unsustainable, route we are on - we do have to change. Even if you don't believe in global warming or the claim that it is largely "man made" (greenhouse gas emissions) - we will have to change the way we use energy. 1) Reduce the demand for energy (JAHUS projects, cars and airplanes that use less fuel etc.) and increase the use of sustainable energy sources such as windmills, waves, solar and hydroelectric power.   
• We can't be 100% sure, but I believe that we can't rule out the possibility of a connection between CO2 and global warming (even with the current cold weather in the northern hemisphere). We therefore cannot take a chance of staying on the current course and do nothing - because it will be to late when our children and grandchildren wake up to irreversible and dramatic climate changes.  

Progress:  Yesterday, they isolated the piping that takes the cold exhaust air from the aggregate to the exit point (upper right corner of the picture). This should result in slightly higher room temperature in this room (only +9C yesterday) and I hoped that it would help us get rid of the ice/condensation problem on the pipes.

The pictures below show that with the current outside temperature of -21C (and the exhaust temperature is at -11C), there is ice building on the aggregate itself (where there is tiny small leakages from the interior) and actually on the outside of the isolation. 

They also replaced the regulator that is connected to the fan. The disappointment, however, was that it makes just as much noise when it is set on the lowest effect possible. We therefore have to turn it off at night until they have fixed the noise problem (fan and the heatpump outside).  

 

Still cold - but our JAHUS is warm inside

Progress:
The temperature is still below -10C and our ventilation aggregate stops working once every 24 hours (the rotating heat exchanger stops rotating and the motor makes a wird noice). The ventilation team has contacted the vendor (in Sweden) and say they will try to send someone over to finish the other work tomorrow (Wednesday, January 6th).

The second picture shows the outside part of the heatpump and the ice that has started to build underneath the heatpump. At the end of this blog post I have also included some pictures of the ice and condensated water that causes trouble inside the house (because air below 0C flows through pipes without isolation). When the team looked at it, they promised to fix it (but it hasn't happened yet).

I have included some of the temperature measurements below to illustrate how the different settings affect the supply of fresh air to the living room and the temperature of the exhaust air. For those of you who are above average interested, I have also included some comments about the different measurements etc.

The first columns in the report represent the input variables:

• Outside temperature: measured on the property, but away from the house (and hence as exact as possible with normal equipment)


• Heatpump: temperaturesetting on the heatpump (it tries to produce air at this temperature)


• Fan: a "1" means that the fan is running - pulling hot air from the area above the heatpump and inserting it into the airflow from the ventilation aggregate (after the heat exchanger)


• Ventilation aggregate: a "1" means minimum effect and a "2" means normal effect. "3" is maximum effect, but was not used during these tests

The next columns represent the results:

• Input air: this is the temperature of the fresh air that the ventilation systems sends out in the living room (after the heat exchanger and after the heated air from the heatpump has been added)


• Exhaust air: this is the temperature of the "used" air that leaves the house. When we lived in a "nei hus" ("no house") the temperature of the air leaving the house was 20C, but with the heat exchanger - the results show that we have managed to lower the temperature by as much as 26.9C (to -6.9C)


• Delta: shows a calculated difference between the outside temperature and the exhaust air (the lower values are the best - because we manage to transfer most of the energy from the exhaust air to the incomming fresh air)

Findings:

1. The heat exchanger works as expected (except for the stops mentioned earlier): The Delta is between 5 and 14C. When there is -18C outside, we send exhaust air of only -6.9C out of the house (Delta = 11.1C)


2. When the fan is off - the temperature the system supplies to the livingroom is below 10C and we therefore decided not to include those measurements


3. When it is below -10C it seems as though there is now effect of increasing the teperature setting of the heatpump. It probably runs at maximum effect anyways and even a setting of 40C would not make a difference.


4. When the outside temperature falls - the effect of the heat exchanger falls (the Delta temperature increases)
   
5. When the aggregate runs on normal effect (2) the volume of air flowing through the system is higher and the temperature of the air to the livingroom is therefore lower. When the temperature of the exhaust air is lower (due to the effect mentioned above), the exchanger is able to cool it down more than the tests with the aggregate running at low effect (1).