Energetic and financial sustainability of solar assisted heat pump heating systems in Europe

Abstract The objective of this study is to compare energetically and financially a solar assisted heat pump heating system powered by flat plate collectors with a conventional air source heat pump system for twenty European cities. The examined buildings have 100 m 2 floor area and they are identical among the examined cases in order to perform a comparison under the same terms. Only the insulation thickness varies, examining two insulation scenarios with 4 cm and 8 cm insulation layer thickness. According to the final results, the electricity savings using the solar assisted heat pump system are ranged from 30% to 40%, indicating great sustainability in both insulation scenarios. The COP in the solar assisted systems is found close to 4 and for the conventional air source systems close to 2.5. The solar assisted heating system is proved to be also the financially optimum solution for the majority of the examined cities and especially in low insulation cases. More specifically, this system is proved to be ideal for cities with high solar potential and not extremely low heating loads. The simulation tool is TRNSYS and the analysis is performed for all the winter period.

[1]  Hussain H. Alzoubi,et al.  Re-assessment of national energy codes in Jordan in terms of energy consumption and solar right in residential buildings , 2015 .

[3]  Richard Thygesen,et al.  Economic and energy analysis of three solar assisted heat pump systems in near zero energy buildings , 2013 .

[4]  Alan S. Fung,et al.  Solar systems and their integration with heat pumps: A review , 2015 .

[5]  Saffa Riffat,et al.  Solar assisted heat pump systems for low temperature water heating applications: A systematic review , 2016 .

[6]  Yilong Han,et al.  Simulating the Inter-Building Effect on energy consumption from embedding phase change materials in building envelopes , 2016 .

[7]  Kristen Parrish,et al.  Small buildings, big impacts: The role of small commercial building energy efficiency case studies in 2030 Districts , 2016 .

[8]  Saffa Riffat,et al.  Build-up and performance test of a novel solar thermal roof for heat pump operation , 2017 .

[9]  Ruzhu Wang,et al.  Performance Comparison of Direct Expansion Solar-assisted Heat Pump and Conventional Air Source Heat Pump for Domestic Hot Water , 2015 .

[10]  K. A. Antonopoulos,et al.  An innovative Trombe wall as a passive heating system for a building in Athens—A comparison with the conventional Trombe wall and the insulated wall , 2016 .

[11]  K. A. Antonopoulos,et al.  Energetic and financial evaluation of solar assisted heat pump space heating systems , 2016 .

[12]  Jingyong Cai,et al.  Numerical simulation and experimental validation of indirect expansion solar-assisted multi-functional heat pump , 2016 .

[13]  Liangliang Sun,et al.  Performance investigation of a combined solar thermal heat pump heating system , 2014 .

[14]  Chris Bales,et al.  Influence of boundary conditions and component size on electricity demand in solar thermal and heat pump combisystems , 2016 .

[15]  Fabian Ochs,et al.  Review of component models for the simulation of combined solar and heat pump heating systems , 2012 .

[16]  Zeyu Zhang,et al.  Analysis of typical public building energy consumption in northern China , 2017 .

[17]  Kimon A. Antonopoulos,et al.  Energetic and financial evaluation of a solar assisted heat pump heating system with other usual heating systems in Athens , 2016 .

[18]  W. Beckman,et al.  Solar Engineering of Thermal Processes , 1985 .

[19]  O. T. Masoso,et al.  The dark side of occupants’ behaviour on building energy use , 2010 .

[20]  A. Çağlar,et al.  Performance analysis of a solar-assisted heat pump with an evacuated tubular collector for domestic heating , 2012 .

[21]  Ove Mørck,et al.  Energy consumption and indoor climate in a residential building before and after comprehensive energy retrofitting , 2016 .

[22]  Michel Y. Haller,et al.  Simulations of Combined Solar Thermal and Heat Pump Systems for Domestic Hot Water and Space Heating , 2014 .

[23]  Derek Clements-Croome,et al.  The development of building assessment criteria framework for sustainable non-residential buildings in Saudi Arabia , 2016 .