End Users’ Acceptance of New Technologies in Building Heating: An Experience on Solar Assisted Heat Pumps

Abstract

Acceptance, meant as a social issue, plays a fundamental role on different levels in the effective integration of technological innovations into building heating systems. Many efforts have been made in previous studies to understand the key indices and indicators of acceptance, used to improve the agreement of people towards the considered innovation and widen its use. In Italy many laws have come into force with the target of increasing the level of acceptance of renewable plants in terms of affordability and economic benefits. The paper reports the Authors' experience in a specific application of solar assisted heat pump designed and built to provide up to the 70 % of the heating energy needs of Palacus sports center in Genoa, Italy. A voluntary passage from the heat pump heating mode to the classical burner has been noticed most of times when a technical action on the plant was required, despite of the well-known pollution and environmental impact. These difficulties can be overcome easily, working not on how people could better manage the innovative, not user-friendly plants, but on how the plant automation could satisfy the end-users' needs minimizing their intervention at affordable costs.

The experience on a sport centre pilot plant with solar assisted heat pump and a look forward for new control strategies and technology upgrade

“…For example, after the rupture of a panel, the system needs a manual restart, but the staff often prefers to bypass the SAHP and use only the gas burners. In conclusion the lower, unexpected consumption in the coldest months are due to the switch from the SAHP to the traditional gas burners, due to an issue of users' acceptance [9], [10]. This topic is not specifically dealt in the present work, but it influences strongly the plant performance as shown by the measurements collected.…”