Simplified method to determine the collector area of solar-assisted ground-source heat pump system

Abstract This paper mainly presents the numerical simulation on the long-term performance of a solar-assisted ground-source heat pump (SAGSHP) system for heating and cooling in a commercial building in cold areas of China. A simplified method of determining the optimal solar collector area of the SAGSHP system was proposed based on the yearly heat balance of the ground in the storage volume and the system economy. The verification of the system design is carried out by TRNSYS and a numerical simulation is performed for continuous operation of 10 years under the meteorological conditions of Dalian. Simulating results show that the underground load imbalance problem for a heating load dominated ground-source heat pump (GSHP) system is solved by soil recharging in the transition season, and the average temperature of ground in the storage volume keeps nearly unchanged at the end of every year.