Energy, economic and environmental analysis of solar-assisted air source heat pump system: a case study in university town

Abstract

Abstract The integration of solar collector and air source heat pump is solar-assisted air source heat pump system (SA-ASHP), which is regarded as a promising technology in carbon emission reduction and energy saving. In this paper, a SA-ASHP system is designed to supply bathing water for the university town in Shanghai, which can alternately operate with solar-assisted (SA) mode and air-source (AS) mode. The energy performance of SA-ASHP system is simulated with mathematic model, on this basis, its financial benefits and environmental impact have been evaluated and compared with gas boiler water heater. The results indicate that the performance in AS mode and SA mode are affected by the environmental conditions, and the impact on AS mode is more significant. To achieve the optimal performance, the SA-ASHP system operates in AS mode from April to October and operates in SA mode from November to March. As the price of natural gas is higher than electricity and heat pump has good energy-saving effect, the operation cost of gas boiler water heater is much higher than that of SA-ASHP system. After the start of carbon trading, the operation of gas boiler will bring great amount of pollutant emission cost, and SA-ASHP can bring the environmental benefit of ¥ 1 165 654.