Solar and Heat Pump Systems – IEA SHC Task 44 & HPP
Abstract
Over the past few years, systems that combine solar thermal technology and heat pumps have been marketed to heat houses and produce domestic hot water. This new combination of technologies is a welcome advancement, but standards and norms are still required for its long term successful commercialization. At this time, most of the manufacturers are developping systems without a clear framework of what could be the best combinations of the two worlds and customers are lacking comparative approaches. The result is that systems reaching today the market are far from being optimized and sometimes simple enough to guarantee a life time problem free and efficient operation both technically and economically. What is needed is a systematic analysis of the different possible systems and their potential for application in different climates and under different boundary conditions. To begin to tackle this, the IEA Solar heating and cooling programme together with the Heat Pump Programme has initiated Task 44, “Solar and heat pump systems”. The scope of this new Task, which has begun in 2010, will be on the following items: