The warm summer days are irrevocably behind us and winter is just around the corner. November is the perfect time to prepare our homes for the cold season, and we've put together some tips for a more comfortable and energy-efficient home.

Check your boiler, stove or heat pump

Before the winter season, it's important to have your boiler or stove checked to make sure it's working properly - preferably by an authorized service technician who can also clean your equipment. Checking smoke and carbon monoxide detectors is also a good idea. You should also check if you use a heat pump. more comfortable and energy-efficient home.

Take care of radiators

Sometimes we forget them, but that's a mistake. Radiators need to be vented regularly to remove any air bubbles. This will help them run more efficiently. It's also important to remove built-up dust and dirt, which will partially decompose over the summer months and you may be unpleasantly surprised by an unpleasant smell when you flood. Settled mould and microbes can also cause respiratory problems or aggravate allergies.

Check the condition of the house

It is beneficial to check the condition of the exterior walls and roof of your home for cracks or holes that need to be filled. This will help to keep the warm air in and the cold air out. Make sure the house is well insulated. Seal or insulate any gaps around doors and windows.

Set the thermostat appropriately

In winter, it is important to carefully adjust the thermostat to maintain a comfortable temperature in your home with respect to its use. According to European Union guidelines, a comfortable home temperature is between 20 and 22 °C. This temperature is ideal both in terms of comfort and economy.

Even colours can contribute to a pleasant perception of warmth

Dress your home in colour. Sunlight is scarce in winter, so we recommend decorating your home with warm, muted tones such as orange, green, red or yellow. We also recommend covering the floors with rugs, acting as insulation. Appropriate comfortable clothing will also help to keep warm.

If you find that despite all of the above measures, your home is still very cold, we recommend that you replace your heating system with a more efficient one. You can take inspiration from our website and choose the one that best suits your needs.

The number of installations of photovoltaic installations for renewable energy generation is increasing significantly worldwide. Not surprisingly, this is a technology with huge potential, with the sun as the main source whose power needs to be harnessed.

The main limitation at the moment is that, in general, the time of day when the most electricity is generated by PV panels does not coincide with the time when demand is highest, as shown in the graph.

This generally means that during the morning, afternoon and evening there is not enough PV generation to meet the demand for electricity, and on the other hand, more electricity is generated during midday than the investor needs at that time, thus creating a surplus.

In order to make the best use of the PV system, it is essential to store the resulting surplus so that it is available at the time of greatest need.

Currently, surpluses are stored through accumulators.

However, such a solution has a number of disadvantages:

• high costs
• limited power
• limited service life
• contaminants

ecoGEO+ and ecoAIR+: the path to zero energy buildings

 

We have developed a technology that allows us to combine both renewable energy sources, i.e. heat pumps and photovoltaic devices, in a unique and much larger capacity.

Most importantly, we provide our customers with this solution at no additional cost, it is a standard part of all ecoGEO+ and ecoAIR+ heat pumps.

The key is to convert the surplus from photovoltaic installations into thermal energy, which is much easier and cheaper to store because it only requires a volume of water. That is, something we already have in our homes (in DHW tanks, underfloor heating, storage tanks, swimming pools, etc.).

When a surplus is generated from photovoltaics, the pumps increase their output (thanks to the inverter technology of all our heat pumps, i.e. the ability of the compressors to modulate their output), absorbing the surplus and converting it into thermal energy suitable for both cooling and heating.

In this way, we get much closer to a balance between the energy generated and the energy needed in our homes.

Automatic change of set values of all thermal requirements of the installation in the event of excess energy generated by photovoltaics, i.e. switching from basic temperature values to previously configured excess temperature values.

One of the key features of our heat pump technology is that, thanks to all our years of experience in managing and developing software and control strategies for variable capacity compressors (inverter technology), in our case, no electricity from the grid is ever consumed in a PV surplus situation.

The compressor output increases and adapts to this excess without exceeding it. If the available surplus electricity is not enough to reach 60°C in DHW, for example, it stays at 50°C, 55°C, etc., but always guarantees that no electricity is drawn from the grid, and this is a big difference compared to similar systems.

Although net zero balance is one of the most significant features of the hybridisation of heat pumps with photovoltaic systems, there are other very important features that confirm that the eco GEO and eco AIR series are unique:

 

SET YOUR LIMIT

It is possible to set a limit on the electricity consumed. If the total energy consumption of the house approaches this limit, the heat pump will reduce the energy consumption (inverter technology) to avoid exceeding it.

This is very important because it allows us to negotiate a lower contracted tariff for electricity consumption and therefore significant long-term savings on our electricity bills.

 

KEEP YOUR TARIFF UNDER CONTROL

Our heat pumps allow individual electricity tariff settings for peak and off-peak periods in summer and winter. The pumps produce more energy when electricity is cheaper and reduce consumption when it is more expensive. This allows further significant savings on electricity bills.

The E-system is designed to enable the connection between the heat pump and the PV system in the most advanced and efficient way, but also in the most compact way.

In combination with the heat pump, the E-system is an added technology with all the advantages and features described above, but also with a photovoltaic inverter and even with 1 to 5 storage batteries that can act as a supplement to store the heat generated by the heat pump.

For situations where electricity production drops, the energy stored in the batteries is still able to cover the household's electricity consumption. In addition, its modularity allows the storage capacity to be expanded at any time with a very simple installation.

If you want your installation to be unique, efficient and economical, get ahead of the future by combining a heat pump with photovoltaic panels from us and take ownership of your own energy. Whether you are interested in installations with thermal requirements of just a few kW to those requiring several hundred kW.

Family houses

Industrial buildings

Commercial buildings

Did you know that mondelēz international has one of its factories in the Czech Republic? Could you remember which sweets this giant makes? You'd be surprised, but among them are our favorite nostalgic sweets from the past, as well as the confectionery that our descendants like to eat. For example, among them are the aforementioned Fidorkas, the essential equipment of every trip, Horalka, but also, for example, Oreo cookies, Milka chocolates or Cadbury sweets. A lesser-known fact is that in order for all these goodies to reach you in the highest quality, perfect conditions are needed first in production.

Mondelēz International invested more than CZK 4 billion in its production plant in Opava. Thanks to the construction of a new hall and significant investments in the original production premises, in the last four years the factory has become the largest and at the same time state-of-the-art cookie production site of Mondelēz International in Europe. In addition to increasing the number of jobs in Opava, the company is also a positive example of what a modern supply chain that is less complex, more flexible and cost-effective should look in the 21st century, as Daniel Myers, executive vice president for the integrated supply chain, commented on the investment.

The world's leading manufacturer of chocolates and biscuits also took an ecological view when building a new production hall. The factory holds internationally recognized LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for thrifty buildings, their construction, operation and management. Sustainable development applies both to selected raw materials supplied and to the production plant as such. For example, the well-known Oreo biscuits use cocoa from the Global Cocoa Life Project, which is owned by Mondelēz International and is focused on sustainable cocoa cultivation. Through its own sustainable agriculture programmes, Mondelēz International ensures that the raw materials used are of the highest quality and at the same time grown in prosperous agricultural communities. (source: mynewsdesk.com)

In optimizing the logistics process, GeoCore designed a solution that given the raw materials from which all the aforementioned and neglected products are made the best conditions for storage and freshness. We have delivered our special air door curtainsto the factory , which will effectively prevent unwanted moisture from intrusion and will keep cocoa beans, wheat and other necessary basic rawmaterials dry. In addition to maintaining the required level of humidity and temperature in the Mondelez raw material warehouse, in other specialized workplaces, screens help, for example, to prevent dust or flying insects from intrusion. The apertures installed at the logistics openings do not use air heating, because thanks to the patented technology, the aperture completely closes the hole and thus there is no heat loss of the object that needs to be heated. Our air curtains are thus the only ones on the market that have an investment return.

Last but not least, the benefit of the equipment is that employees do not have to be exposed to constant drafts and cold air flow, which at work threatens their health and largely eliminates incapacity for work. We design screens tailored to every operation. Both for special industrial applications and for common optimization of heat losses. The screens are suitable both for entrances, entrances from the outdoor environment, as well as for entrances between zones with different environmental quality. You can read more about the system here.