Simulation of Hybrid Photovoltaic Solar Assisted Loop Heat Pipe/Heat Pump System

Abstract

Abstract:A hybrid photovoltaic solar assisted loop heat pipe/heat pump (PV-SALHP/HP) water heater system has been developed and numerically studied. The system is the combination of loop heat pipe (LHP) mode and heat pump (HP) mode, and the two modes can be run separately or compositely according to the weather conditions. The performances of independent heat pump (HP) mode and hybrid loop heat pipe/heat pump (LHP/HP) mode were simulated and compared. Simulation results showed that on typical sunny days in spring or autumn, using LHP/HP mode could save 40.6% power consumption than HP mode. In addition, the optimal switchover from LHP mode to HP mode was analyzed in different weather conditions for energy saving and the all-year round operating performances of the system were also simulated. The simulation results showed that hybrid LHP/HP mode should be utilized to save electricity on sunny days from March to November and the system can rely on LHP mode alone without any power consumption in July and August. When solar radiation and ambient temperature are low in winter, HP mode should be used.

Modeling and Simulation of a Novel Combined Solar Photovoltaic-Thermal Panel and Heat Pump Hybrid System

“…The study presented herein is based on the work previously reported by Yang et al [1], and references [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] where a flat plate solar collector is attached to a PV panel. The hybrid system in question is composed of the PV solar panel and thermal solar tube collector as well as a heat pump as shown in Figure 1.…”

“…New PV technologies reported in the literature have been shown to improve the energy utilization efficiency of solar PV, such as multi-junction cells, optical frequency shifting, and concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) systems, among others; however, these are expensive. In order to improve the efficiency of solar PVs a novel concept of a combined photovoltaic-thermal solar panel hybrid system has been developed and implemented [3][4][5][6][7][8][9], where the PV cells of the solar PV panels are cooled by water flow. Excess thermal energy is generated and dissipated due to intrinsic limitations of the cell, that is, the excess thermal energy increases the cell temperature, which reduces the conversion efficiency of the cell.…”

“…More recently, the performance of independent heat pump modes and hybrid loop heat pipe/heat pump modes were simulated and compared by Dai et al [4]. Their findings showed that on typical sunny days, the hybrid loop heat pipe/heat pump mode saved 40.6% more power consumption than the heat pump mode.…”

“…Recent developments have been reported by [4,13,15] on the integration of heat pumps and photovoltaic technology including the use of photovoltaic solar assisted heat pump systems. A system using a solar-assisted heat pump and a PV/T collector as its evaporator was also reported by Ito et al [17].…”

A New Mixture Refrigerant for Space Heating Air Source Heat Pump: Theoretical Modelling and Performance Analysis

“…Hu et al [18] proposed a self-optimizing control scheme using the ESC (extremum seeking control) strategy which could search and even track both fixed and slowly varying optimum COP. Dai et al [19] numerically studied a hybrid solar assisted loop heat pipe/heat pump water heater system, and the results showed that, on typical sunny days in spring or autumn, the proposed system could save 40.6% power consumption compared to heat pump mode. The influence of wet compression on a heat pump system was experimentally investigated by Seong et al [20], who found that the heating capacity and power input of wet compression increased more than that of dry compression, with a superheat of 10 • C.…”