Combining heat pumps with a PV system - A comfortable zero-emission house

Further reading

• Interview Kurt Hellemans (1471)

Combining heat pumps with a PV system - A comfortable zero-emission house

• - [1] Retaining heat from groundwater
• - [2] Little or no maintenance
• - [3] Forced ventilation with heat recuperation
• - [4] Combining various subsidies
• - [5] A three-phased PV system
• - [6] A second heat-pump for sanitary water
• - [7] Cutting consumption
• - [8] Dreaming of going off the grid

Index

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The following article is the result of a discussion with Kurt Hellemans and provides a brief overview on the sustainable energy solutions he implemented in his house. The article is published as an eBook so you can scroll the different pages using the titles bellow. The full article is also available right.

Kurt works as an electricity and instrumentation designer for BNS Engineering. He lives with his wife Lieve and their two children, Ella (7 years old) and Pablo (5 years old), in a new house in Laarne near Ghent, in the Flemish part of Belgium.

It is a spacious home of 180 m² with all of the usual appliances: an electric cooker, a fridge, a freezer, a dishwasher, a washing machine for laundry, a computer, and a television. The house even has a private sauna as a bonus. The tap water is supplied to the house from a rainwater cistern by an electric pump. Despite all of these electrical appliances, the total monthly energy bill of Kurt and his family is only €76. How can that be?

For Kurt Hellemans, electricity is as much a passion as a profession. His technical know-how goes hand in hand with a strong environmental consciousness. His own home is a perfect example. He has installed two heat pumps, a ventilation system with heat recuperation, and photovoltaic panels. The complete system reduces the energy purchased from the grid to one quarter of what the average Flemish household uses. By buying 'green electricity' generated by renewable resources, he has reduced the carbon emissions of his house to zero.