Feasibility Analysis of Solar Assisted Ground-coupled Heat Pump Indirect Heating Systems

Abstract This paper presents a novel solar assisted ground-coupled heat pump indirect heating system (SA-GCHPIHS) designed for a residential building in Beijing for space heating and supplying domestic hot water. The recharging strategy for ground heat exchanger (GHE) is analyzed and determined based on system energy performance. The impacts of operation strategies and heating load ratio are simulated and compared, and the system with heat pump and water tank installed in series (SA-GCHPIHS(s)) showed better performance than SA-GCHPIHS(r) when domestic hot water (DHW) load dominates the heating load. And more energy would be saved by SA-GCHPIHS(s) as DHW load grows larger.