Abstract
Heat pumps are currently being developed to reduce the energy footprint for residential and commercial building space conditioning and water heating loads in cold climates. To mitigate the nocuous impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the environment, and to create a carbon-neutral building stock, alternate lower-GWP refrigerants must also replace the predominant use of R-410A, without re-engineering the mechanical hardware. In this paper, we analyze the performance of lower-GWP alternative refrigerants (R-32, R-452B, R-454B, and R-466A) relative to the conventional R-410A and draw conclusions on the relative performances to meet cooling loads. The simulations are accomplished using the heat pump design model, a well-known, public-domain design tool with a free web interface and downloadable desktop version to support public use and the HVAC R&D community. The contributions contain detailed, hardware-based heat exchanger and system analyses to provide a comprehensive assessment. The results of the simulation are scrutinized from the first (capacity and energy efficiency) and second laws (exergy analysis) to identify sources of systemic inefficiency, the root cause of lost work. This rigorous approach provides an exhaustive analysis of alternate lower-GWP refrigerants to replace R-410A using the same hardware. The results have practical value in engineering heat pumps in an economy that is compelled to alter by the consequences and uncertainties of climate change, to reduce its anthropogenic carbon footprint.
Highlights
R-454B results in the highest COP, and R-466A results in the lowest COP
R-454B results and R-466A results in the lowest COP
Cooling capacity increments of the drop-in alternative refrigerant compared to R-410A are 4% and 6% better for R-32 and
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Heat pumps extract energy from renewable sources and convert it to more useable forms for space conditioning and for water heating They can be powered by renewable sources of electricity and must be engineered to use low-GWP refrigerants for a sustainable economy. Pham and Rajendran [7] reviewed the technical and policy search for next-generation refrigerants with both low-GWP and LCCP factors, with a focus on replacing R-410A in unitary air conditioning and heat pumps. They concluded that R-32 (GWP of 675). Offers an attractive lower-GWP solution for mainstream air-conditioning and heat pump applications, especially in new equipment re-designed to optimize performance. The model has been used worldwide over 350,000 times, with extensive scientific and technical literature validating the simulations [1,12,13,14,15,16]
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