Heat-pumps are a key component of zero carbon energy systems making it possible to provide heating efficiently from renewable energy, they are featured in many zero carbon energy scenarios such as ZeroCarbonBritain developed by the Centre for Alternative Technology and are also highlighted in David MacKay's book Sustainable Energy without the hot air.

By monitoring a heat-pump its possible to see how well it is working, diagnose problems and get a better understanding of how a key potentially zero carbon heating solution works, data gathered and shared from well performing systems could help de-mystify heat-pump operation and help improve performance by diagnosing any problems early.

This is an initiative to develop a web-connected open source hardware heat-pump monitor that can measure heat-pump electrical input, heat output and system temperatures. Alongside web software for heat-pump data visualisation, analysis and sharing of open heat-pump data.

Getting Started

OpenEnergyMonitor Heat-pump monitoring guide

Online tools

  • Real time readings:
    Power input, heat output, flow, return, outside temperature, total energy, COP last 30, 60 and 120 minutes.

  • Heating period viewer:
    Detailed zoomable historical graphs of system values for exploring heating periods. Compare measured COP with the theoretical carnot COP for the heating period.

  • Daily view:
    Longer term trends viewable on daily kwh electricity input, kwh heat output and daily COP graph.

  • Powered by Emoncms:
    Uses Emoncms for data storage and visualisation.

  • Open source software:
    View on github

The Hardware

  • Electricity input:
    The electricity consumption of the heat-pump can be measured with either clip-on CT sensors or a Modbus or MBUS interface with a suitable electricity meter (e.g SDM120).

  • Heat output:
    The heat output of the heat-pump can be measured by interfacing with suitable MBUS heat meters (e.g Sontex, Kamstrup, Axioma).

  • System temperatures:
    Additional system temperature measurements can be made with DS18B20 digital one-wire temperature sensors.

  • Open Hardware:
    View on github

About us

This initiative is collaboration between OpenEnergyMonitor.org and John Cantor of heatpumps.co.uk.