Vaillant has donated and installed an aroTHERM plus air source heat pump at Adrenaline Alley, Europe's largest indoor skatepark. The system provides low carbon heating for a new spectator lounge, replacing traditional heating methods with a more sustainable electric alternative. This project is part of the Growing Communities initiative, which focuses on providing heat pump technology to charities and grassroots organizations to reduce their operational emissions and improve energy efficiency.
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Good to see a real world install in a high ceiling environment like a skatepark. The real question is how they handled the heat loss in a lounge situated inside a massive open hall. If the envelope is leaky, even a high efficiency pump has to work overtime.
Exactly. I wonder what the peak load is for this specific lounge during a winter cold snap. One unit is fine, but if this becomes the blueprint for larger facility retrofits, the local distribution board might need an upgrade to handle the increased electric load.
Corporate donations like this are nice for PR, but we need to see more scalable subsidy designs that allow smaller charities to afford the upfront cost of heat pumps without relying on manufacturer charity programs.
Vaillant is pushing their aroTHERM plus into the community sector. It is a straightforward case of replacing carbon intensive heat with a pump. Not a massive systemic shift, but it gets more hardware in the field.
