Heat pump or gas-heating: New approaches to save energy for drying of laundry

Electric clothes dryers are often accused of producing too much hot air and wasting energy. While the ecological benefit of washing machines and dishwashers is beyond any questions, the youngest member of the so-called "White Goods Family" is under discussion from the beginning because of its high energy consumption. On the other hand, in spite of this bad reputation the saturation of electrical operated tumble dryers on the European Market is increasing continuously, showing that there is a clear request from the consumer. Within this background it is necessary to start activities which are suitable to improve the energy efficiency but without reducing the well known positive advantages. Most of the electric tumble dryers available on the European Market are well optimised. Because of this high standard it is difficult to improve the energy efficiency with an acceptable effort by using the current dryer technique. More energy reduction needs new technical solutions. One possibility is the Heat Pump Dryer - a combination of condensation dryer and heat pump. With the introduction of this technology it is possible to reduce the energy consumption in comparison to traditional electrical drying processes by roughly 50 %. A comparison, based on primary energy consumption shows that also the tumble dryer with Gas Heating is a very interesting alternative in relation to the traditional electrical tumble dryer. By using this technology, it is also possible to save approximately 50 % of primary energy due to the missing conversion losses from primary energy to electricity.