Experimental Study of a Heating and Cooling Pilot Installation Driven by a Hybrid PV-Thermal Solar Field
Abstract
Hybrid photovoltaic thermal (PV-T) solar collectors combine in a single unit thermal and electricity production. Low-temperature heat is recovered from the back-side of the photovoltaic laminate by using a thermal absorber. Several previous studies indicate that the energy production (thermal and electrical) from the PV-T collectors can be combined with heat pumps, to maximize the use of the solar resource. This paper studies the energy performance of a heating, cooling and power pilot installation, which uses a high-efficiency reversible heat pump, with a nominal power of 10.5 kW for heating 16.0 kW for cooling. This Heat Pump is driven using mainly the energy produced by an unglazed PV-T solar field. The energy performance of this installation is analysed, during four weeks in the winter season. The average coeficient of operation of the heat pump obtained, under real operation conditons, gets values between 4.5 and 4.9; with high PV-T electrical solar contribution factor, above 95%, and an additional PV-T thermal solar contribution factor between 8.9 % and 17.0%. These results finally indicate that the system covers the thermal demand in winter using mainly the energy (electrical and thermal) produced by the PV-T solar field.