Wärmepumpen#

Heat Pumps are used to supply heat to buildings, hot-water systems and for industrial processes; heat sources are ambient air, the ground, ground water and cooling and waste water from industrial processes. The first large-scale application of heat pumps occurred in Austria in 1951 when Oesterreichische Salinen AG converted its operations to the thermocompression process at Hall in Tirol, which was also used in the new saltworks at Ebensee, Upper Austria, from 1977. Since the early 1980s heat pumps have been used increasingly for economic and environmental reasons. In 1997 the savings effected by the use of heat pumps in Austria 5,876 terajoule of energy (equivalent to approx. 143,300 tons of light fuel) was gained through the use of heat pumps in Austria, constituting 0.62% (942,785) of total energy consumption.