Air Source Heat Pump for Emergency Generators

Emergency and standby generators are common place for industries, institutions, hospitals, government agencies, schools and most commercial facilities that need emergency power. Most generators required block heaters to keep the engine block warm and ready to run within 15 - 30 seconds. Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP) can be used to replace and/or augment block (resistance) heater for preheating the backup generator. Since the generator must be able to provide emergency power at a moment’s notice, the engine block of the diesel generator must be preheated to around 100 F for quick start emergency needs. These heaters are on 24/7 and use significant amounts of energy. Block heaters are inefficient in preheating the engine because the coefficient of performance (COP) is unity. This means that only one unit of heat is delivered by one unit of electricity. Whereas, heat pumps have an average COP of 4.2, ambient temperature dependent. This implies that ASHP can deliver 4 units of heat with one unit of electricity. When operating at 24/7, significant energy can be saved by the use and replacement of block heaters with ASHP.