IEA Workshop on a Technological Vision for the Heat Pump Industry

Heat pumps have a long tradition in Austria. As early as 1853, Peter Ritter von Rittinger has designed and built the first heat pump, a hydro-power driven mecha - nical vapour recompression system, used in the saline of Ebensee. Nowadays three centrifugals with an input of 20 MW are in operation there.

The "real" Austrian heat pump market started its development at the end of the seventies with a growing demand for groundwater heat pumps for the use in new buildings and outside air heat pumps in bivalent systems for retrofitting existing buildings. After the oil price dropped in 1985, the market collapsed and the remaining manufacturers concentrated mainly on ground source heat pumps. From then on, it has been a long way forward for manufacturers, associations and researchers to develop the market and technology we have today.

Austria played an active role in the development of the IEA activities e.g. as organiser of the first IEA Heat Pump Conference in Graz or as founding member of the European Heat Pump Association in Brussels in the year 2000.

The acceptance of the heat pump technology not only as an energy efficient technology, but also as a device for using renewable energy, by the European Union in 2009 can be seen as a major break through, which will impact positively on the market development of this technology.

This Workshop aims to demonstrate the Austrian activities within IEA and EHPA, the impact of these efforts on the heat pump market development and an outlook of possible future developments market and technology-wise.

Presentations

Further downloads

Bettina Brunnader
Austrian Institute of Technology
Giefinggasse 2
A-1210 Wien
Phone: +43 50550 6497
Fax: +43 50550 6679
E-Mail: bettina.brunnader@ait.ac.at