Making eco-friendly home improvements is a great idea if you’re concerned with rising energy prices and climate change issues – but which ones should you go for? Which ones will yield the greatest benefits for you and your family?

You may well have heard of thermodynamic heating systems before in your quest for renewable energy knowledge, although you may have heard them referred to as solar assisted heat pumps as well.

Quite simply, thermodynamic panels are a bit of a cross between a solar panel and a heat pump, designed to be more efficient at creating energy than the likes of air source heat pumps by using solar gain and radiation. What this means is that such a system is able to take advantage of air temperature (much as a heat pump would) and solar radiation (like a solar thermal system).

There are all sorts of benefits to implementing this kind of system at home. It boasts low energy consumption, for one, can save you up to 90 per cent off your hot water energy bill, reduce your carbon footprint, add value to your house and has outstanding thermal efficiency.

It’s also worth noting that it usually only takes a day to have the panels installed on your roof or elsewhere on the property and they can also be retrofitted to your current hot water system, so no need to worry on that front either.

Thermodynamic systems are also better than traditional solar thermal options because they work down to -15 degrees C, both sides of the panel absorb energy and there’s no maintenance to consider either.