Evaluation of the potential energy savings of a centralized booster heat pump in front of conventional alternatives

Abstract

The current technologies used for DHW production in the city of València (Spain) are mainly gas boiler and immersion electric heater that are individual installations, high energy consuming technologies and high CO2 emitters. There exists a high energy savings potential on DHW production based on the introduction of smart energy systems with Heat Pumps (HP) and also with the generalization of collective installations. To this purpose, this research aims to deeply analyze different DHW production scenarios, individual and collective, for a real district of the city of València in order to obtain its energy savings potential. The cases analysed are: immersion electric heater, HP water heater as individual installations and the smart energy system as a collective HP booster installation coupled with an Ultra Low District Heating network. The results of a first evaluation for a group of 315 dwellings show higher energy savings and higher system global efficiency for the collective installation in front of the individual installations considered. The improvements show up to 70% energy savings in front of the immersion electric heater and 1.5 points higher system global efficiency regarding the HP water heater for the specific case analysed. Furthermore, the collective installation needs lower power installed and tank volume.