The decarbonized, energy self-sufficient home: the low cost of keeping cool in a heat wave
This week, I received my electricity bill for July, which was similar to previous ones since we installed solar panels, a hybrid inverter, a battery and a heat pump in our house earlier this year, but different in one aspect: last month, due to temperatures often in excess of 35ºC, we used the heat pump system for cooling, pumping water at about 12ºC through the radiators, which lowered the temperature to about five or six degrees lower than outside.
The good thing about heat pumps is that it avoids the noise and constant blowing of traditional systems, it does not dry out the air, and it doesn’t produce a high level of condensation on the radiators. Some call it “the church effect”, and the truth is that the feeling of entering the house is a bit like entering a building with thick stone walls that keeps it cool.
Nevertheless, keeping an electrical appliance connected throughout the day uses energy (although significantly lower, around half or less than using the heat pump for heating). However, given that, due to that constant consumption, now there are more peaks in which we have to import electricity from the grid, this means that the amount of surplus energy that we discharge and that we are compensated for in the bill increases: of the €50 or so that we have…
