Static characteristics and efficient control of compression- and absorption-type hybrid air conditioning system

A gas engine driven hybrid air conditioning system was constructed; it consisted of a gas engine, a single-stage compression-type refrigerator, and a single-effect absorption-type refrigerator that can be driven by shaft power and waste heat, respectively, from the gas engine. Its efficiency is greatly enhanced as compared to a conventional gas engine heat pump because it utilizes waste heat from the gas engine. This study used simulation and experiments to elucidate the static characteristics of this air conditioning system and develop a control system to drive this combined system efficiently. In the simulation results, the system COP at the design point was about 1.87 and, at 50% partial load operation, the performance increased by 14% because of the simultaneous manipulation of the input gas flow rate and hot water flow rate. The validity of the simulation was confirmed by experiments carried out using the actual constructed machine.