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Applicability and comparison of solar-air source heat pump systems between cold and warm regions of plateau by transient simulation and experiment

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Abstract

Solar-air source heat pump (solar-ASHP) system has a potential application in the field of hot water and space heating in residential buildings. Such system features the complementary advantages to solve the discontinuous operation of the single solar system and the frosting issue of the single ASHP system. This paper built the solar-ASHP systems in Kunming and Shangri-La, and tested the system performance under different weather conditions in these two regions of plateau. Meanwhile, the transient heat balance models of the system were established under the sunlight time and non-sunlight time and were verified by the experimental results. Moreover, the verified model was applied to reveal the energy balance performance between the energy supply and building heat demand. The law of the system performance affected by the ambient temperature, effective heat collecting area, and cumulative heating capacity of collector was explored by the validated model. The results indicate that when the ambient temperature decreases by 1 °C during non-sunlight time, the energy efficiency ratio decreases by about 0.07. A square meter decline in the effective heat collecting area pushes an increase in the heating capacity of 5.75 MJ. Meanwhile, the cumulative heating capacity of collector increases by 5 MJ, and the ASHP energy consumption decreases by 0.54 kWh. The dynamic changes of the ambient temperature and instantaneous solar radiation are the main reasons of the heat balance errors. Therefore, both the developed system and model are feasible and reliable in different climate regions.

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Abbreviations

ASHP:

air source heat pump

DSHWS:

domestic solar hot water system

EER:

energy efficiency ratio

ETC:

evacuated tube collector

FPC:

flat plate collector

A c :

effective heat collecting area of the collector (m2)

A t :

cross-sectional area of the pipe (m2)

C w :

specific heat capacity of water (J/(kg-K))

G :

instantaneous solar irradiance (W/m2)

I :

collector area receiving solar energy (MJ/m2)

m :

mass of water (kg)

Q :

heat (J)

Q’:

heat supply of collector heat storage (J)

t :

temperature (K)

t a :

ambient temperature (K)

t i :

inlet temperature (K)

t o :

outlet temperature (K)

T :

normalized temperature difference

T t :

unit time (1 s)

v :

flow rate of water in the pipe (m/s)

η :

efficiency

ρ :

density (kg/m3)

φ :

diameter (mm)

ashp:

air source heat pump

c:

collector

cl:

collector heat loss

r:

room heat load

s:

storage

se:

solar energy

sl:

storage heat loss

tla:

tube heat loss of ASHP

tlc:

tube heat loss of collector

tlh:

tube heat loss of indoor heating

w:

water

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51666018, No. 51966019), and Department of Education Foundation in Yunnan Province of China (No. 2018JS147).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Solar Energy Research Institute, Yunnan Normal University, No.768, Juxian Street, Chenggong district, Kunming, Yunnan, 650500, China

    Luonan Xu, Ming Li, Ying Zhang & Xi Luo

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  1. Luonan Xu
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  2. Ming Li
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  3. Ying Zhang
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  4. Xi Luo
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Correspondence to Ming Li.

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Xu, L., Li, M., Zhang, Y. et al. Applicability and comparison of solar-air source heat pump systems between cold and warm regions of plateau by transient simulation and experiment. Build. Simul. 14, 1697–1708 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-020-0748-5

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