If there’s one thing that makes me smile bitterly about the way we’ve designed our energy systems so far, it’s their fundamental inefficiency. Take solar panels: brilliant in concept, but terribly wasteful in practice. As they convert sunlight into electricity, they heat up, wasting a huge amount of heat energy into the air. Meanwhile, in our homes, we turn on heat pumps and boilers to artificially create… the heat that our panels are actively trying to shed. What a little show. Triple Solar, a Dutch company with a decidedly more integrated vision, has decided to put an end to this absurd waste with its hybrid heat pump 5.0. What is this? Let's see.
A response to climate change
Heating and air conditioning represent one of the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions globally. As climate change intensifies, the need to regulate the internal temperature of buildings becomes more and more pressing, creating a vicious circle that only worsens the environmental situation. The decarbonization of these sectors has become an absolute priority, and the development presented by Triple Solar fits perfectly in this direction.
The most interesting thing is that this technology responds to two problems at the same time: on the one hand it reduces energy consumption for air conditioning, on the other it improves the efficiency of photovoltaic panels that, when they overheat, lose part of their ability to generate electricity. It is one of those rare cases in which you get two benefits with a single solution.
How does the hybrid heat pump work?
In the Triple Solar 5.0 system, as mentioned, the photovoltaic panels installed on the roof do not just produce electricity, but are equipped with a heat exchanger on the back that captures the residual thermal energy. Instead of letting it disperse into the environment, this is conveyed to the heat pump, which uses it to heat the home.
The system consists of two modules, and works by extracting waste heat from photovoltaic modules installed on the roof.
The panels used are not the standard ones, but TOPCon models (passivated contact with tunnel oxide) supplied by a Slovenian manufacturer called bisol: have an electrical conversion efficiency of 22%. The actual heat pump It weighs 55 kg and measures 100 cm x 38 cm x 65 cm, overall compact dimensions for a home installation.
Efficiency and performance
According to Triple Solar, this hybrid solution offers 20% greater efficiency than traditional heat pumps. The system uses propane (R290) as a refrigerant gas, an eco-friendly choice that further reduces environmental impact. The electrical power varies between 1,2 kW and 5 kW, optimized to work in harmony with the photovoltaic solar panels.
A particularly interesting feature is the ability to function even in extremely harsh climatic conditions, down to -20°C, making this technology suitable even for regions with severe winters. The seasonal coefficient of performance (SCOP) is 3,83 at 55°C and 4,74 at 35°C, values that demonstrate the high efficiency of the system.
Hybrid heat pump, a trailblazer
The Triple Solar 5.0 heat pump was designed with versatility in mind. It is compatible with single-family homes, townhouses and multi-family buildings. I particularly like the fact that it was designed especially for those homes that, due to aesthetic or regulatory constraints, cannot install traditional air conditioning systems.
What a beautiful idea of a system that wastes nothing, that recovers energy that would otherwise be lost in a world that has to deal with limited resources and an increasingly unstable climate. Solutions like this hybrid heat pump will take us from a linear and wasteful approach to a circular and integrated one.
Because the real one sustainability This is how it is built: by rethinking existing systems to make them more efficient, not simply by replacing them with marginally better alternatives.
