Nusku heat pumps - a less disruptive replacement for a combi-boiler.

[LnP]

Might be of interest for people looking to replace a gas combi-boiler with no room for a DHW cylinder and don't want the disruption of up-sizing radiators. https://nusku.co.uk/news/nusku-set-to-turbocharge-switch-to-heat-pumps.

It's an R290 heat pump with a high flow temperature so presumably some loss of coefficient of performance.

 

In a recent LinkedIn post, they say:

"Benefits include:

➡️Integrated hot water cylinder saves space and installation time 
➡️Fewer connections for better reliability and lower maintenance 
➡️High temperature heat pump reduces need for radiator upgrades 
➡️Future-ready system with built-in smart controls for easy use and optimisation 
➡️Engineered for minimal noise and disruption to the home

Prototypes are being trialled in homes across Bristol, with wider trials to follow ahead of launch next year"

[SimonD]

Good ideas there. They look like they have a very good team for development. I just wonder how well resourced they are to build it and scale, but looks promising.

I really do wish we could change the record though and stop trying to make every new heating solution like a gas boiler and instead try to build a new message around the transition, but I suppose with so many people still harking on about North sea oil & gas, it's an uphill struggle.

[MikeSharp01]

Very interesting / exciting. Always good to see a product engineering business start-up spreading its wings. Loads of challenges ahead but looks like a strong team.

 

[LnP]

11 hours ago, SimonD said:

I just wonder how well resourced they are to build it and scale, but looks promising.

Tech startups don't necessarily plan to build and scale. The founders might be working towards a buy out by one of the big companies. Resourcing up to now will probably be by angel investors and private equity. Importantly, they have IP https://www.lens.org/lens/patent/123-310-151-347-508/frontpage?l=en

 

4 hours ago, MikeSharp01 said:

Very interesting / exciting. Always good to see a product engineering business start-up spreading its wings. Loads of challenges ahead but looks like a strong team.

 

Fully agree and there's a lot of tech innovation going on in the UK. It looks like this company started out with the help of this innovation centre in Bristol https://www.futurespacebristol.co.uk/about-us/. Cambridge has historically been where a lot of this has been going on but Bristol is up and coming. It's cheaper than Cambridge and with e.g. Dyson and Elvie nearby they have critical mass for engineers.

https://nusku.co.uk/news/start-up-secures-1-million-funding-to-develop-new-heat-pump-tech#:~:text=Nusku is a Bristol-based start-up that is,from key people in the energy sector

Edited 3 hours ago by LnP

[JohnMo]

What is the innovation - a high temp small cylinder with mixing valve outside within the heat pump enclosure? Or did I miss something?

 

Is it something like a heat geek mini cylinder just outside instead of in a cupboard?

[SimonD]

21 minutes ago, LnP said:

Tech startups don't necessarily plan to build and scale. The founders might be working towards a buy out by one of the big companies. Resourcing up to now will probably be by angel investors and private equity. Importantly, they have IP https://www.lens.org/lens/patent/123-310-151-347-508/frontpage?l=en

 

I know, I worked in the tech startup scene, including in Bristol, for over a decade and ran workshops for leaders in startups looking to scale from about 7m in annual revenue across Europe. The patent is just pending but to me looks like a bit of a joke when you look at what patents are really for. This is a patent application that proposes the adding a thermal store into the heat pump housing - it stretches the 'inventive step' but then patents have been a bit of a joke for the last few decades. 

 

Don't get me wrong, they're doing something good, but in reality it's just another heat pump offering with a slightly different approach. I do wish them luck and hope it goes well, but is the IP strong enough to stop the really big players or pull them in on a license deal? They'll need to have a lot of funds behind them as I bet their burn rate is pretty steep - it's not a cheap area to be developing new products in (unless they've got some backing from a large company already, but then the team would likely have a different shape). 1m in investment it positive, but it will not go very far at all, but hopefully they'll get a decent proof of concept from it to support more rounds of funding.

[MikeSharp01]

1 hour ago, SimonD said:

 https://www.lens.org/lens/patent/123-310-151-347-508/frontpage?l=en

For my part I tend to agree but it has been done pretty thoroughly for a scheme at this scale. It may just have been applied for as a blocking / obscuring patent requiring the big boys & girls to really do their homework which may put them off and they won't be as agile as a startup. Worst thing is the people who don't both about infringing patents - which I assume is part of the reference to them mainly being a joke. 

 

 

[JohnMo]

1 hour ago, MikeSharp01 said:

For my part I tend to agree but it has been done pretty thoroughly for a scheme at this scale. It may just have been applied for as a blocking / obscuring patent requiring the big boys & girls to really do their homework which may put them off and they won't be as agile as a startup. Worst thing is the people who don't both about infringing patents - which I assume is part of the reference to them mainly being a joke. 

 

 

Sound like the patent basically covers having a dwh cylinder of any description in box or shed (enclosure) with gshp would be a contravention of the patent. Which is nonsense.

 

Or containing a buffer vessel in the heat pump enclosure and they exist already, would contravene the patent.

 

Good luck to the company, but the patent is a little limited.

[LnP]

2 hours ago, JohnMo said:

Or did I miss something?

 

Maybe you missed reading the patent? 😉

[jack]

1 minute ago, LnP said:

Maybe you missed reading the patent? 😉

The international search report says that only claims 9, 10, 29, 31, 34-36 are novel, and concludes that none of those involves an inventive step. 

 

From a quick look, I don't even think all of the supposedly novel claims are actually novel. For example, "novel" claim 29 merely defines the step of removing an existing hot water cylinder from a domestic building. That doesn't sound very novel to me. 

[SimonD]

1 hour ago, MikeSharp01 said:

I am sure @jack will have some observations but for my part I tend to agree but it has been done pretty thoroughly for a scheme at this scale. It may just have been applied for as a blocking / obscuring patent requiring the big boys & girls to really do their homework which may put them off and they won't be as agile as a startup. Worst thing is the people who don't both about infringing patents - which I assume is part of the reference to them mainly being a joke. 

 

 

 

I think there are 2 angles as to why patents a generally a joke. 1st is if you're a small player and someone doesn't care about infringement and in particular they're in a different jurisdiction there's very little you can do without a very big legal purse, if that's even enough. 2nd which is more to do with innovations is that they're increasingly being granted for stuff that really doesn't actually fit the proper definition for something worthy of a patent and unfortunately the tech industry seems to be one of the worst sectors for this - especially in the US of A. About 18 years ago I developed a new product and the bar for granting a patent was pretty high - i.e. it had to demonstrate that it was an innovation and that the improvement was not something obvious to others skilled in the same technical field, and of course that it hadn't been previously shared. Now for my part, putting a cylinder in a box together with a heat pump to sit outside is hardly earth shattering in terms of an improvement nobody in the industry could think about. Maybe they've drafted it well enough to obscure this?

But, at the end of the day, the commercial reality may be the biggest challenge. They are going to need a serious amount of money. As a comparison, Ideal Heating received 5.2 million from the government plus the company itself invested  6.8 million to upgrade its manufacturing plant for heat pumps in Hull. They've already got the manufacturing resources and know-how and someone I knew years ago who owned a company that designed and installed manufacturing production lines in the automotive sector developed a new product - in his situation volume wasn't high enough for the Chinese to be interested so he had to struggle to find the resources in the UK, again even with his knowledge of the industry - this was back in the 2000s. It's not my intention to come across as negative, but it is a mountain they're climbing. This is the reality that killed my product - the testing and production resources, even though a UK manufacturer had agree to help me with all the prototyping support and sucking up some risk their end.

Edited 34 minutes ago by SimonD

[JohnMo]

9 a locking mechanism - not really novel.

10 mesh grilles, been used in industry for years to prevent small fingers and animals away from things they should not touch 

29 plenty of people have installed a DHW cylinder in a shed outside

30 a modular enclosure novel - no

34 - 36

 

Here something someone invented about 11-12 years ago - Unical

Gas boiler version

ASHP version