Towards a universal framework for heat pump monitoring at scale

As heat pump installation across Europe increases, monitoring system performance on a large scale is key for policy decisions and customer confidence. However, in-situ heat pump monitoring has been found in previous work to be very challenging. This paper explores current approaches to heat pump monitoring using two field-monitoring projects in Ireland and the UK where each investigated onboard and third-party monitoring systems. It was found that no approach was able to give accessible, accurate data at a low enough cost for widespread deployment of the monitoring. To overcome these challenges, a proposal is set out for a universal monitoring framework for domestic heat pumps, which would apply to every new heat pump sold in Europe. The framework sets out principles of producing monitored data which are standardised, accessible yet secure, accurate and low cost. Adoption of such a framework would improve customer confidence as well as allowing heat pumps to be compared with one another, driving improvements in heating system installation and lowering running costs. Comment is invited on the universal framework. POLICY RELEVANCE Monitoring the performance of domestic heat pumps at scale provides important information for policy decisions and householders and results in increased system performance. Large-scale monitoring has previously proven to be challenging. Using two research projects in Ireland and the UK, this paper highlights the lack of a cost-effective standardised monitoring approach and the resulting lack of data. A proposal is set out for a standardised approach to monitoring that would be embedded in all new domestic heat pumps sold on the European market at the manufacturing stage. Requirements are suggested for the data specification, storage, access and security, which would allow standard, accurate data to be extracted from any heat pump and compared with others. The additional cost of this is expected to be under €200 per heat pump.