Sunamp Water Heater System in Somerset, Devon & Perranporth
Are you looking for a cleaner, more effective, energy-efficient solution for your home hot water system? Discover Sunamp.
Sunamp is the most advanced domestic water heating battery in the world that heats water for domestic properties. It can store 4x more energy than traditional hot water tanks (for a given volume of material), doesn’t require maintenance, and is smaller than a slim dishwasher.
Unlike hot water tanks which can often be full of sediment or even harmful bacteria like legionella – Sunamp heats water instantly as it passes through the unit, meaning all the water you wash in is fresh and clean.
It’s non-toxic, plentiful and easy to source, non-flammable and has an extremely long life. It can easily achieve 50 years of daily use with no signs of degradation.
- No maintenance
- Stores 4x more energy than traditional hot water tanks
- Small and compact, it can fit anywhere
- Heats water instantly, on-demand
- All the warm water you wash with is fresh, clean and hasn’t been sitting in a tank for hours
- The battery can be expected to run for 50+ years without degradation
- Legionella risk is significantly reduced compared to regular water tanks as it doesn’t store water directly
How does Sunamp work?
Instead of trying to heat up a large amount of water – which is time-consuming and not energy efficient – Sunamp uses electricity to heat up the material inside the battery. This material heats up rapidly and stays warm for far longer than water. It loses 2 to 4 times less heat than a traditional hot water tank – saving money and reducing CO2 emissions. When water is run through pipes inside the PCM battery, the water is heated up instantly to bring you fast-flowing hot water on demand.
What is it made from?
The Sunamp battery is made from inorganic, Sodium Acetate based PCM material. This is the technical name for what is actually a food-grade material, used (amongst other things) as a common flavouring for salt and vinegar crisps. It’s non-toxic, plentiful and easy to source, non-flammable, and has a long life (50 years of daily use and no degradation).
What does it look like?
The Sunamp battery looks like a slim, rectangular white box. Traditional hot water tanks are often large, bulky and can take up an entire cupboard. Sunamp is smaller than a slim dishwasher, can be floor mounted, fitted in a small kitchen unit in a cupboard or garage, which frees up lots more useful storage space in your home!
Who make Sunamp batteries?
Sunamp batteries are made by the most advanced PCM Heat Battery energy storage company in the world. They develop, design and manufacture their heat batteries at their headquarters and factory in East Lothian, Scotland, UK.
“On the second floor, without a lift, your fitters made a difficult task appear easy. They removed the existing night storage heaters with minimum disturbance.”
Mr & Mrs Smook
Taunton
How much are they?
There are a range of sizes depending on your individual needs and the size of your home. The price starts from £2995 + VAT including installation.
Will they work with solar?
Yes
Will they work with underfloor heating?
As Sunamp was designed specifically to heat water rather than home heating, we wouldn’t recommend it for this purpose.
Do they work with heatpumps?
Yes
Can you have this with oil heating?
Yes
What's the difference between this and a hot water tank?
No maintenance is needed, there are no signs of degredation for at least 50 years so no need to replace. Heated water is fresh and not stored in a tank which can harbour bacteria such a legionalla. Hot water tanks are much larger; a Sunamp capable of providing 300 litres of water will fit in a small cupboard where as the equivalent tank would be almost 7ft tall. These can easily work with solar panels and heat pumps.
How much do they cost to run?
You don’t waste any energy as you only heat water that you use, but the final cost depends on whatever rate you’re on. There are also several sizes (and killowattages) depending on the volume of hot water your home requires. The full specifications of each system are on the brochure. As this is fairly new technology, there isn’t currently enough independent evidence available to estimate typical savings. However, based on your individual home and circumstances, this can be estimated to help people come to the right decision for you.
Will I save money? (compared to my current system)
It depends on what your rates are now, what system you’re currently using and which size Sunamp you have installed. They can give you an individual quote so you’d be able to work out potential money saved over time so you can make an informed decision.
How efficient are they?
The EU energy rating is A+. Also, if you have a renewables system, solar, etc an energy storage system like Sunamp can reduce your fuel bills and carbonby allowing you to make the most of free renewable energy by storing it until you need it.
More information on efficiency
If you take into account the charging time of the Thermino 210 e, should be in the region of 4 hours to 4.5 hours (from cold), including the heating element cycling at start up. In this time the heat loss would be 0.77 (heat loss over 24 hours)/ 24 *4.5 = 0.14kWh of heat loss during the time of charging. The energy used to get 10.5kWh into the heat battery would work out to be 10.5 + 0.14 = 10.64kWh. This without removing heat from the heat battery, during this period and stored in an internal ambient environment. Meaning that your efficiency calculation would be 10.5/ 10.64 = 98% efficient. For the in-depth efficiency calculation for our product against a standard, we use the standard EN 50440, the values from AEC are listed in the manual Technical Specification section.
Do they need maintenance?
No maintenance is needed for the duration of the battery lifetime. The battery should operate with no degredation for at least 50 years.
How long do they last?
The battery should operate with no degredation for at least 50 years.
Why are these different to lithium batteries?
The Sunamp phase change battery consists of a patented and non-toxic phase change material formulation called Plentigrade P58. This is a food-grade product (although it’s not advised that you actually eat it) – sodium acetate trihydrate – its core ingredient, is actually a flavouring used in salt and vinegar crisps, so if you like crisps, you may have eaten it in small quantities! PCM can be safely recycled back into the ground if necessary and comes from renewable, non-carbon sources. These batteries have been tested to work with no degradation whatsoever for at least 50 years, so consumers don’t need to worry about replacing them. Mining Lithium, however, involves large quantities of water, production of large quantities of mineral waste, the alteration of the hydrological cycle etc. Recycling lithium is actually extremely complicated and also costs more than it does to mine for more lithium. For the few facilities that can recover materials from lithium-ion batteries, traditional processes aren’t efficient enough to recover high-grade lithium to be used in remaking batteries therefore they tend to only recover other elements used. It’s also not always properly recycled, on top of the fact that people don’t always correctly recycle them – just as many people don’t correctly recycle plastic. The involved metals like cobalt, nickel, and manganese (toxic and can contaminate water supplies and ecosystems if they leach out of landfills). So, they’re not relatively easy to recycle and if other more eco-friendly options can be used, they ideally should be.
Are they Chinese?
The battery was created with the University of Edinburgh, and the UK’s national synchrotron particle accelerator, Diamond Light Source.
Do you still need a hot water storage tank?
No
Want to find out more?
Call us on 01209 714600
