Aerothermal energy (or aerothermy) is a renewable source able to extract the energy contained in the air that surrounds us, to use it for different purposes.
The heat pump is a thermal machine capable of pumping heat from a cold source to a hot one. In the case of aerothermal heat pumps, they extract heat from the natural environment (air) through the evaporator and transfer it to the interior of a building or to industrial processes through the condenser. If they are reversible, heat can be transferred from the interior of the building to the extrernal environment.
Nowadays, aerothermy can be used to produce domestic hot water and also for heating and air conditioning of homes or enclosed spaces.
The ratio between free energy and payment energy varies according to the outside temperature. The colder it is, the harder it is to extract heat and the more heat it makes, the harder it is to extract cold.
For the purposes of accounting for the renewable energy quota established by Directive 2009/28 / EC of the European Parliament, the energy captured by heat pumps will be taken into account provided that the final energy production significantly exceeds the input of primary energy needed to drive the heat pump, that is, only a part can be considered renewable.
It is possible to hybridize these systems integrating them as support in geothermal systems, in such a way that they optimize both the necessary investment and the operation of the system.