Edinburgh Napier University

  To meet the UK Government’s net-zero target by 2050 requires a radical rethink around how existing households optimise and manage energy. Therefore, to accelerate the path to net-zero ‘Clean Heat’ homes, the research focuses on transitioning from carbon-intensive heating solutions by evaluating innovative, latent heat phase change material (PCM) technology as a low-carbon alternative in the context of domestic hot water heating. This paper assesses the efficiency, economic and environmental benefits of incorporating a Sunamp heat battery as a pre-heating solution in a typical UK retrofitted household with a pre-installed solar panel array. The study explores telemetry data to measure the efficiency gains of using Sunamp heat batteries as a pre-heat source for a gas combi-boiler, quantifying the associated carbon- and cost-savings. The main objectives of this paper are to (i) demonstrate the viability of a PCM solar water heating technology as a low-carbon transitioning solution in domestic retrofit, (ii) empirically evaluate and validate the performance of an integrated Sunamp heat battery to inform future efficiency monitoring strategies and (iii) explore further system optimisation and cost-saving opportunities for the Sunamp and combi-boiler system set-up.