Applied Energy 87 (2010) 28182825

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Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Study on performance of solar assisted air source heat pump systems for hot water production in Hong Kong
Hong Li *, Hongxing Yang
Renewable Energy Research Group, Department of Building Services Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong, China

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
This paper reports the investigation results on application of the solar assisted air source heat pump systems for hot water production in Hong Kong. A mathematical model of the system is developed to predict its operating performance under specied weather conditions. The optimum ow rate from the load water tank to the condenser is proposed considering both the appropriate outlet water temperature and system performance. The effect of various parameters, including circulation ow rate, solar collector area, tilt angle of solar collector array and initial water temperature in the preheating solar tank is investigated, and the results show that the system performance is governed strongly by the change of circulation ow rate, solar collector area and initial water temperature in the preheating solar tank. 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 25 February 2009 Received in revised form 11 May 2009 Accepted 15 June 2009

Keywords: Solar assisted air source heat pump systems Circulation ow rate Coefcient of performance Hot water production

1. Introduction In Hong Kong, a large amount of hot water is required for both residential and commercial buildings. As a small territory with no indigenous energy sources, fossil fuels are the major energy sources for hot water production. With the deterioration of energy crisis and environment pollution, public awareness of energy efciency and environmental protection has become more prominent recently. There is also a growing, government-led trend of applying renewable energy resources in Hong Kong. One area of interests lies in the wider use of solar energy systems. In last few years, solar water heating (SWH) systems have been applied in a number of public facilities in Hong Kong, such as the installation of a 313 m2 solar collector for a swimming pool complex, 882 m2 for a central slaughter house, and 135 m2 for a re station and ambulance department. So far in these installations, conventional SWH systems are mainly adopted. However, highrise buildings are found everywhere in the urban districts in Hong Kong, which means that there is space constraint for installing enough solar collector arrays to satisfy customers requirement. For such a case, a solar assisted heat pump (SAHP) system is a good choice instead of a conventional SWH system [1]. Based on the energy source to the evaporator, the SAHP systems can be classied as parallel, series and dual systems. In a series system (Fig. 1), which is also called the solar assisted water source heat pump (SA-WSHP) system, the circulating water is
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +852 27664728; fax: +852 27657198. E-mail address: 06900897r@polyu.edu.hk (H. Li). 0306-2619/$ - see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2009.06.023

heated in the solar collector, rejects part of its heat to the water in the solar hot water tank, and then ows into the evaporator for heat exchange with the working uid in the heat pump and nally returns to the solar collector. When solar radiation is not strong enough, the working uid of the heat pump absorbs heat from water in the solar hot water tank which works as a lower temperature heat source for a complete working cycle. In this kind of system, the heat pump draws energy only from solar thermal storage. In a parallel system (Fig. 2), the heat pump draws energy from the outdoor atmosphere as well. The dual source system is a hybrid system to combine the series and parallel systems in which the heat pump can draw energy from either the solar thermal storage or the atmosphere. Due to the complicated conguration, this kind of the SAHP system would have the highest initial cost and its control is difcult to ensure comfortable system performance. Numerous studies have been done on the thermal performance and economic feasibility of the SAHP systems [27]. The existing results show that with the same solar collector area a parallel system is substantially better than a series system and slightly better than a hybrid system for all collector areas, and a parallel system can deliver a greater fraction of loads from solar energy resource. In addition, due to the mild winter in the subtropical region, there is minimum defrosting problem. Thus, in this paper, a parallel SAHP system, i.e. the solar assisted air source heat pump (SAASHP) system, is studied for supplying hot water to a hypothetical residential building in Hong Kong. The system performance is predicted through a simplied mathematical model. Based on the model, the effect of various parameters is analyzed.

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Nomenclature Ac Ast Cp COPi COPall d FR h i Id Ig IT mL mw qLs qs qstl Qc,i Qc,all Qe,i Qw,i Qw,all Rb Ta solar collector area (m2) surface area of preheating solar tank (m2) specic heat of water (J/kg C) COP of the ith heating cycle COP of a complete heating process diameter of preheating solar tank (m) heat removal factor of solar collector height of preheating solar tank (m) the number of heating cycles diffuse solar radiation intensity (W/m2) global solar radiation intensity (W/m2) solar radiation intensity on tilted surface (W/m2) load mass ow rate (kg/s) circulation water ow rate (kg/s) load met by solar energy (W) useful solar heat gain (W) storage heat loss of preheating solar tank (W) heat discharged by condenser in the ith heating cycle (W) heat discharged by condenser in a complete heating process (W) heat absorbed by evaporator in the ith heating cycle (W) heat absorbed by hot water in the ith heating cycle (W) heat absorbed by hot water in a complete heating process (W) tilt factor ambient air temperature (C) Tc,i Te TR Tst Tw,i Tw,i1 UL Ust Vst Vw _ Vw Wcom,i Wcom,all condensation temperature in the ith heating cycle (C) evaporating temperature (C) cold water temperature (C) hot water temperature in preheating solar tank (C) water temperature in the ith heating cycle (C) water temperature in the (i 1)th heating cycle (C) overall heat loss coefcient of solar collector (W/m2 C) heat loss coefcient of preheating solar tank (W/m2 C) storage volume of preheating solar tank (m3) storage volume of load water tank (m3) volumetric ow rate (m3/s) compressor work input in the ith heating cycle (W) compressor work input in a complete heating process (W)

Greek symbols b tilt angle of solar collector (radians) u latitude of location (radians) d angle of declination (radians) x hour angle (radians) h angle of incidence (radians) zenith angle of the sun (radians) hz sa product of transmittance and absorptance sw time of a complete heating process (s) q water density (kg/m3) qg ground reectance

2. System description Fig. 2 shows the proposed SA-ASHP system which mainly consists of two loops: the solar collector loop and the airwater heat pump unit. When solar radiation is strong, the solar collector loop itself can meet the hot water heating load. While on cloudy day or

at night, the solar collector circuit cannot supply enough hot water and the air source heat pump starts to operate. From the solar process point of view, the operation of this system is the same as a conventional SWH system, but the heat pump supplies auxiliary energy to ensure reliable hot water supply. That means the heat pump operation has no effect on the performance of the solar col-

le

ct o

so l

ar c

hot water supply

ol

solar hot water tank Storage water tank water pump water pump cold water supply

water-water heat pump unit

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the SA-WSHP system.

water pump

hot water supply

so

la

rc

ol

le

ct

or

water pump preheating solar tank cold water supply

water pump

load water tank

air-water heat pump unit

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the SA-ASHP system.

2820

H. Li, H. Yang / Applied Energy 87 (2010) 28182825

lector loop. For the heat pump unit, the solar collector loop meets part of the heating load and reduces the energy supply that the heat pump has to provide. The water temperature in the load water tank, which is dependent on the solar collector loop, plays an important role in determining the coefcient of performance (COP) of the heat pump. 3. Heating load of the building

The declination, d can be found from:

  284 m d 23:45 sin 360 365

where m is the mth day of a year. 4.2. Preheating solar tank An energy balance on the unstratied tank is expressed as:

The hypothetical residential building of 25-storey has eight apartment ats per oor. According to statistical data from the Hong Kong Housing Authority [8], assuming each at is designed for four people in a family, a 390 m2 roof area is available for arrangement of solar collector arrays. Flat plate solar collectors with single cover are used in this project. The storage capacity of the preheating solar tank is 32 m3, which is calculated by the hot water daily consumption of 160 l per apartment and the total number of 200 apartments in the building. The load water tanks capacity is set as the maximum hourly hot water consumption, the load temperature is set as 55 C [9] and the draw off prole [10] is shown in Fig. 3. 4. Mathematical model The major components including the solar collector, the air water heat pump unit and water tank are modeled individually as follows. 4.1. Solar collector The useful heat gain from the solar collector arrays is calculated [11] by:

qC p V st

dT st qs qLs qstl dt

In this project, hot water from the preheating solar tank is discharged at a rate equal to that of the load ow rate. In this case, the demand met by solar energy is determined as:

qLs mL C p T st T R
The rate of storage loss (qstl ) is estimated as:

qstl U st Ast T st T a

For a cylindrical tank, the surface area of the tank is related to the storage volume of the tank by the following equation [12]:

Ast 1:8452 h=dV 2=3 st

Combining Eqs. (1), (6) and (7) with Eq. (5), the energy balance equation of the preheating solar tank can be expressed as:

qC p V st

dT st Ac IT F R sa F R U L T st T a mL C p T st T R dt U st Ast T st T a 9

4.3. Airwater heat pump unit During the whole heating process, it is noted that the condensation temperature of the heat pump unit varies with the change of water temperature in the load water tank. And this dynamic characteristic should be considered in the simulation model to be in line with the actual performance [13]. A simple equation-t model of the heat pump unit can be developed using the performance data from manufacturers. According to the least square method,

qs Ac IT F R sa F R U L T st T a

where the incident solar radiation on a tilted surface (IT ) is calculated by:

IT Ig Id Rb Id
and

    1 cos b 1 cos b qg Ig 2 2

Rb

cos h sin d sin / cos b sin d cos / sin b cos d cos / cos b cos x cos d sin / sin b cos x cos hz cos d cos / cos x sin d sin /

2.5

the 2nd power polynomial curves are t to the data. The following assumptions are made prior to tting the model equations: Pressure drop is neglected in the evaporator, condenser and pipeline. The condenser is large enough to obtain the required hot water temperature. The outlet water temperature in each heating cycle can reach 90% of the corresponding condensation temperature. In the heat pump unit, R22 is chosen as refrigerant. When the outlet water temperature of condenser reaches the required load temperature (i.e. 55 C), a whole heating process is nished. It is assumed that the heat pump unit needs n times of heating cycles in a complete heating process. In each heating cycle, the condensation temperature (T c;i ) keeps constant and the hot water temperature in the load water tank has an invariably stratied distribution.

Load drawoff (m3)

1.5

0.5

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Time (hour)
Fig. 3. Daily domestic hot water consumption pattern.

H. Li, H. Yang / Applied Energy 87 (2010) 28182825

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When all water in the load water tank is heated to 90% of T c;i , one heating cycle is completed. Based on the aforementioned assumptions and the performance data of the compressor from manufacturers [14], the energy discharged by the condenser in the ith heating cycle can be estimated as:

Q c;all Q w;all

n X i1

C p mw T w;i T w;i1

13

Correspondingly, the total compressor work input is estimated as:

Q c;i Q e;i T e ; T c;i W com;i T e ; T c;i

10

W com;all

n X i1

Wcom;i T e ; T c;i

14

The heat energy absorbed by hot water in the ith heating cycle can be calculated as:

_ Q w;i qV w C p T w;i T w;i1

11

It is noted that the thermal energy discharged by condenser equals that absorbed by hot water in the load water tank. For a complete heating process, the total heating time is expressed as:

Considering the power consumed by fan and water pumps, the total work input of the system is assumed to be 1.4 times of that consumed by compressor. Based on the calculation above, the COP of each heating cycle and the total COP of a complete heating process are calculated as follows:

COPi Q c;i T e ; T c;i =1:4 W com;i T e ; T c;i COPall Q c;all =1:4 W com;all

15 16

_ sw nV w =V w

12

The total heat energy absorbed by hot water can be calculated as:

On the basis of the above detailed mathematical model of each component, a FORTRAN program is written and developed to esti-

Start Input meteorological data and system parameters

Run models of solar collector loop to calculate Tst

Initial guess: water flow rate

vw

i=1

Run heat pump unit model to calculate Tc,i, Tw,i, Qc,i, Wcom,i, COPi

Tw,i55 /55 0.01 Yes Output

No

i=i+1

Tw,i<55 No
.

Yes

v w , i, Tw,i, w ,COPi, COPall

Update End A

vw

Fig. 4. Flow chart of the calculation program.

2822 Table 1 System parameters and input data. Location Compressor Te Solar collector

H. Li, H. Yang / Applied Energy 87 (2010) 28182825

5. Results and discussion

Residential building in Hong Kong ZR19M3 of Copeland 15 C for 15th July; 5 C for 15th November Ac = 390 m2 FR(sa) = 0.71 and FRUL = 6.91 W/m2 K South facing with tilt of 19.4 Ground reectance, 0.2 Cylindrical, h/d = 1 Insulation: glass wool (k = 0.04 W/m K) and 0.2 m thick Daily average dry bulb air temperature 25 C for 15th July; 15 C for 15th November

Preheating solar tank

Initial water temperature in preheating solar tank TR

mate thermal performance of the proposed system. The ow chart of the calculation program is shown in Fig. 4.

In this case study, two typical days, i.e. the 15th July and the 15th November, are analyzed. The former stands for weather conditions in summer and the latter represents moderate weather conditions. The hourly weather conditions [15] of these two days are used for analysis. The various system parameters and input data are listed in Table 1. Based on the mathematical model of the solar collector loop, the hourly hot water temperature in the preheating solar tank is simulated. The daily average hot water temperature is adopted as the initial temperature in the load water tank. For the ASHP unit, the circulation water ow rate from the load water tank to the condenser plays an important impact on the performance of the system. The investigation results on the 15th July are shown in Figs. 57. As shown in Fig. 5, when the circulation ow rate is small, the outlet water temperature is increased sharply after each heating cycle. As a result, the nal outlet temperature would be much higher than the required value, which is unnecessary for energy consumption. On the other hand, as the

60

55 9m3/h 9.5m3/h 50 10m3/h 10.5m3/h 10.8m3/h 45 11m3/h 11.5m3/h 12m3/h 40

Outlet water temperature (

35 1 2 3 4 5

The number of heating cycle (time)

Fig. 5. Effect of circulation ow rate on outlet water temperature.

4.5 9m3/h 9.5m3/h 4 10m3/h 10.5m3/h 10.8m3/h 3.5 11m3/h 11.5m3/h 12m3/h 3

COP

2.5 1 2 3 4 5

The number of heating cycle (time)

Fig. 6. Effect of circulation ow rate on COP.

H. Li, H. Yang / Applied Energy 87 (2010) 28182825

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ow rate grows, more heating cycles are needed which can also lead to a much higher outlet water temperature than the required. Therefore, an optimum ow rate should be found out to get the appropriate outlet water temperature and nally to save energy. Except for the nal outlet water temperature, the COP of the

total heating time (hour) the number of heating cycle (time) total COP

0 9 9.5 10 10.5 11 11.5 12

Circulation flow rate (m /h)

Fig. 7. Effect of circulation ow rate on system performance.

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14

outlet water temperature (

10 )

total COP total heating time (hour)

Circulation flow rate (m /h)

Fig. 8. Effect of circulation ow rate on the 15th November.

system should also be considered. Fig. 6 shows that the COP of the heat pump is decreased as the heating process goes. In the process, the water temperature rises after each heating cycle. The elevated water temperature then leads to higher condenser working temperature and pressure. Therefore, the system performance declines. As indicated in Fig. 7, it can be found that when the ow rate is 10.8 m3/h, the total COP (i.e. 3.86) is the highest and the total heating time (i.e. 0.7 h) is the shortest. Besides, the required temperature can be reached within one hour. Considering the nal outlet water temperature, the total heating time and system performance, 10.8 m3/h is proposed as the optimum ow rate for this project under summer weather conditions. As for the 15th November, the simulation result is shown in Fig. 8. It can be found that the highest total COP (i.e. 3.5), the minimum total heating time (i.e. 1.26 h) and the most appropriate outlet water temperature are obtained when the circulation ow rate is 11.5 m3/h. Thus, in this project, 11.5 m3/h is recommended as the optimum ow rate under moderate weather conditions. In addition, when the ow rate grows larger than 12 m3/h, all the considered operating parameters tend to be steady. It is because the water temperature increases very slowly after each heating cycle when the ow rate grows to a certain degree. Consequently, at the end of a complete heating process, the nal outlet water temperature will be very close to the required, which means little energy is wasted. Therefore, the system studied can operate steadily. However, the larger the ow rate, the more power consumed by the water pump. Hence, it is valuable and necessary to nd out the optimum ow rate. Mei et al. [16] did an experimental study about an air source heat pump water heater with no water pump. The result is that when water temperature is 27 C, the ambient air temperatures are 20 C and 27 C, the COP can be, respectively, 4.0 and 4.5. In this study, with the comparative operating conditions (as shown in Table 1), the simulated COP in the considered typical days are 3.5 and 3.86. The results of this study are relatively smaller since more work input consumed by water pumps is considered. Apart from the impact of the circulation ow rate, taking the 15th July for example, the effect of solar collector area, initial water temperature in the preheating solar tank and tilt angle of solar collector array is analyzed subsequently. Fig. 9 shows the effect of solar collector area on system performance. It is clearly seen that, with the increase in solar collector area, both the optimum ow rate and the total COP increase, while

11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 150 optimum flow rate (m3/h) total heating time (hour) total COP

200

250

300
2

350

400

Solar collector area (m )

Fig. 9. Effect of solar collector area on system performance.

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16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 20 23

H. Li, H. Yang / Applied Energy 87 (2010) 28182825

optimum flow rate (m3/h) total heating time (hour) total COP

26

29

32

35

Initial water temperature (

Fig. 10. Effect of initial water temperature in preheating solar tank.

the total heating time decreases. As the solar collector area rises, the temperature difference between the initial water temperature and the required reduces. In such a case, a relative slow water temperature increase in every heating cycle is necessary to obtain an appropriate outlet water temperature. As illustrated above, a larger ow rate will bring about a smaller growth of water temperature after each heating cycle. Therefore, the optimum ow rate rises when the solar collector area grows. With a larger ow rate, the outlet water temperature becomes closer to the needed, which means less energy is wasted. In addition, less work input of the compressor is required because of the reduced water temperature difference. Therefore, the total COP also increases. Since the system performance is improved, less heating time will be spent. As indicated in Fig. 10, the initial water temperature in the preheating solar tank affects the optimum ow rate signicantly. When it ranges from 20 C to 36 C, the optimum ow rate varies from 4.7 m3/h to 14.4 m3/h. The COP of the system is slightly improved. And a complete heating process can be nished in an hour. Fig. 11 shows that the tilt angle of the solar collector arrays plays little impact on system performance. It is because when the tilt angle varies from 12.3 to 32.3, the initial water temperature in the preheating solar tank nearly keeps constant, consequently resulting in the relative constant system performance of the heat pump unit.

6. Conclusions In this paper, a simplied mathematical model is developed to predict the operating performance of the SA-ASHP system through a case study for hot water supply to a residential building in Hong Kong. Compared with the previous experimental study [16], it is veried that the simulation result is reasonable. The following conclusions can be drawn from the investigation results: In the SA-ASHP system, the circulation water ow rate from the load water tank to the condenser plays signicant impact on the system performance, the nal outlet water temperature and the total heating period. Based on weather conditions, an optimum ow rate is necessary to ensure system performance. In this project, the optimum ow rates are 10.8 m3/h for the 15th July and 11.5 m3/h for the 15th November. The solar collector area affects the optimum ow rate significantly. As the area of solar collector array increases, the optimum ow rate grows obviously and the systems COP improves as well. When the initial water temperature in the preheating solar tank ranges from 20 C to 36 C, the optimum ow rate varies from 4.7 m3/h to 14.4 m3/h. With the recommended optimum ow rates, the studied system operates with high performance and can meet the hot water heating load within an hour. As for the tilt angle of the solar collector array, it has little impact on the optimum ow rate. When it increases from 12.3 to 32.3, the recommended optimum ow rate almost keeps constant (i.e. 11 m3/h). References

12

optimum flow rate (m3/h)

10

outlet water temperature ( 10 ) total COP

total heating time (hour)

0 12 17 22 27 32

Tilt angle of solar collector (deg)

Fig. 11. Effect of tilt angle of solar collector.

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