Field Test and Performance Monitoring of Combined Solar Thermal and Heat Pump Systems
Abstract
The technological combination of solar thermal systems with heat pumps continues to be a highly topical subject in the context of sustainable heating concepts, especially for single family houses. In the past years more and more different types of such combined systems have been developed and introduced to the market for both domestic hot water and space heating. The main background for this development is the expected increase of efficiency for both, the solar heating system and the heat pump, and further synergetic effects in comparison to separate conventional heating systems due to the mutual synergetic interaction of the components and high system integration. This can lead to high system performances, thus to a decrease of electric power consumption and emission of greenhouse gases like CO2, respectively . In addition, the reduction of the space heating load of new and renovated buildings leads to a relative increase of the fraction of energy required for hot water preparation. This effect is of significant importance for the combination of heat pump systems with solar thermal collectors since especially during the summer months a large share of the high temperature heat required for domestic hot water preparation can be produced by means of solar thermal. As result, higher seasonal performance factors (SPF) of the overall systems can be achieved.