JEJU — “Not as hot as you’d expect, right?”
At a detached house in Donam-dong, Jeju City, this reporter stood in front of an outdoor unit as bulky as three or four ordinary air-conditioning units. Yet the air its fan pushed out was surprisingly lukewarm, a contrast to the hot air blasted out by the outdoor units of typical apartments.
Samsung Electronics’ all-in-one heating-and-cooling heat pump prototype, the Eco Heating System (EHS) All-in-One wall-mounted air conditioner, is installed in a detached house in Donam-dong, Jeju City, on the 10th. Reporter Kim Yun-su
Samsung Electronics’ all-in-one heating-and-cooling heat pump prototype, the Eco Heating System (EHS) All-in-One outdoor unit, is installed in a detached house in Donam-dong, Jeju City, on the 10th. Reporter Kim Yun-su
Shin Mun-seon, head of Samsung Electronics’ Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) development team, introduces the all-in-one heating-and-cooling heat pump prototype, the Eco Heating System (EHS) All-in-One, installed in the basement boiler room of a detached house in Donam-dong, Jeju City, on the 10th. Photo courtesy of Samsung Electronics
An inside view of the outdoor unit of Samsung Electronics’ all-in-one heating-and-cooling heat pump prototype, the Eco Heating System (EHS) All-in-One. Reporter Kim Yun-su
Shin Mun-seon, head of Samsung Electronics’ Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) development team, introduces the all-in-one heating-and-cooling heat pump prototype, the Eco Heating System (EHS) All-in-One, installed in the basement boiler room of a detached house in Donam-dong, Jeju City, on the 10th. Reporter Kim Yun-su
Shin Mun-seon, head of Samsung Electronics’ Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) development team, introduces the all-in-one heating-and-cooling heat pump prototype, the Eco Heating System (EHS) All-in-One, at Samsung Electronics’ office in Jeju City on the 10th. Photo courtesy of Samsung Electronics
Shin Moon-sun, head of the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) development team at Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), explained that the waste heat produced during cooling is not immediately vented outside but instead carefully reused for heating and hot water. “Compared with running cooling and heating separately, this cuts summer power use by 20%,” Shin said, adding that Samsung plans to launch the EHS All-in-One — the country’s first integrated heating-and-cooling heat pump product — in Korea within the year, following its April launch in Europe.
This reporter visited the Heat Pump Field Test Lab, a demonstration space Samsung Electronics recently set up here for the EHS All-in-One rollout. Instead of a conventional laboratory, the company installs prototypes in an actual home to gather real-usage data and verify performance more precisely, according to Samsung. When the tap was turned on at a sink across from the wall-mounted air conditioner in the kitchen, hot water at 50°C gushed out. As Shin had said, it was hot water made not by discarding the heat generated as the air conditioner ran, but by using it to warm a water tank in the basement boiler room. Across about 165 square meters over the first and second floors, four wall-mounted air conditioners handled all of the home’s cooling, heating and hot water in the same way.
The basement boiler room also looked different from that of an ordinary home. Two child-height cylindrical water tanks, labeled “heating heat storage” and “hot water heat storage,” were connected in a tangle of pipes carrying cold and hot water. As their names suggest, each is equipment that reuses waste heat — one for floor heating, the other for generating hot water.
Of course, when waste heat is scarce, such as in winter when no cooling is done, the heat pump can supply new heat directly, like an ordinary boiler. For this, virtual power plant (VPP) technology — which identifies and controls in real time how much heat the home needs and how much more must be generated — is essential. A laptop placed between the storage tanks was rapidly displaying complex figures on its screen, showing the status of the VPP work.
Heat pump boilers have recently begun to be introduced in Korea, starting with Jeju, but this is the first household to install, even on a trial basis, an integrated heating-and-cooling product that also includes an air conditioning function. A heat pump is a technology that gathers lukewarm heat from the air and converts it into high-temperature heat. A heat pump boiler is a product that gathers outdoor heat to warm an interior.
Samsung Electronics focused on the fact that an air conditioner, which conversely sends indoor heat outside, works on the same principle as a heat pump boiler, differing only in the direction the heat moves. The idea that combining the two would allow a single outdoor unit to expel heat outside in summer, absorb it indoors in winter, and even reuse discarded heat once more as hot water led to the development of the EHS All-in-One. Cooling and heating can also be run separately by space, such as the living room, master bedroom and smaller bedroom.
The heat pump has already been recognized for its high energy efficiency through boiler products currently on the market. A heat pump boiler produces 4.9 times more heat than the electricity put into it. Under conditions with no progressive tax, it can save 50% on electricity costs compared with an existing city gas (LNG) boiler and cut carbon dioxide emissions by 60%. The product costs 14 million won, which is expensive, but after a 70% government subsidy the out-of-pocket cost is about 4 million won. It is still pricier than a conventional boiler, but factoring in the savings on electricity, it is advantageous over the medium to long term. Shin expects the EHS All-in-One likewise could prove economical when compared with the combined cost of a conventional boiler and an air conditioner.
Another advantage of the EHS All-in-One also stood out. Up close, the outdoor unit gave off little heat and little noise. The neighboring house’s front gate stood just across a low stone wall, but there appeared to be almost no harm from heat or noise. In fact, it reportedly met Europe’s strict noise standard of 35 decibels or below.
Samsung Electronics has also installed a demonstration facility at Samsung C&T’s Residential Performance Research Institute in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, where it is developing an EHS All-in-One product suited to apartments, beyond detached houses. The goal is to run the demonstration through June next year and produce results. The top priority is adapting the outdoor unit, which is somewhat large to install outside a veranda, and the heat storage tank, which is likewise too large and heavy to install indoors in a high-rise, to fit apartments.
As part of its carbon neutrality policy, the government has set a plan to distribute 3.5 million heat pump products from this year through 2035 to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5.18 million tons. Samsung Electronics plans to support the government policy through the launch of this new All-in-One product alongside its heat pump boilers. “Jeju is the region where Korea’s heating electrification policy is being pushed first, making it an important testbed where we can verify the competitiveness of our technology and products in an actual residential environment,” Shin said. “By presenting a range of residential HVAC solutions, we will contribute to Korea’s heating electrification and the realization of carbon neutrality.”
