Heat pump (Kelvin's proposal)
Bomba de calor (propuesta de Kelvin)
- Date
- 1852 · confidence medium
- Place
- Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- William Thomson (Lord Kelvin); first installations by Zoelly and Haldane
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
In 1852 Kelvin proposed running a refrigeration machine in reverse to heat a building by drawing heat from outside air, using less energy than the heat delivered. This is the idea of the heat pump.
Heinrich Zoelly patented a ground-source heat pump in 1912 and John Sumner installed the first city-scale heat pump in Norwich around 1945; the theoretical proposal is Kelvin's.
What it led to
- domestic heating with an efficiency above 100% measured in useful heat
- ground-source and air-source heat pumps
- replacement of fossil-fuel boilers