An economic and technical case for a compressor/expander unit for heat pumps

Abstract

Despite their obvious environmental benefit, heat pumps in general have difficulties in penetrating the heating market because of the high initial capital cost. However, given the fact that in the U.K. space heating alone accounts for nearly 50 per cent of all the primary energy used, the universal adoption of heat pump subsidies similar to those offered by certain German utilities for example would be an effective contributor to the reduction of greenhouse gas emission. However, it would be improper for subsidies alone to be the only mechanism by which heat pumps could gain the scale of market acceptance necessary in order to make the required greenhouse gas emission cuts. Therefore, a new generation of heat pumps must have a superior performance than existing units operating with HCFC R22 or R407c. The use of R410a can aid heat pump market penetration by having heat pumps of a superior performance and a smaller size. However, to make full use of R410a, the difficulties of the relatively low critical point must be overcome and the use of a novel compressor/expander unit is illustrated. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.