Experimental exergoeconomic performance assessment of a wastewater source heat pump system

Abstract

This study aims at experimentally analysing and assessing the performance of a wastewater source heat pump system (WWSHP) in cooling mode, which was installed at Yasar University, Izmir, Turkey through exergetic and thermoeconomic (exergoeconomic) analysis methods. Within this context, first, conventional exergy analysis was performed based on the actual experimental data, where exergy efficiencies, destructions and relative irreversibilities of each element were determined to indicate improvements. Then, these results were combined with the cost data of the system to make exergoeconomic analysis. Functional exergy efficiencies of the entire system and the WWSHP were obtained to be 7.56% and 11.77%, respectively. The compressor had the biggest relative irreversibility, which was followed by the fan-coil. The exergoeconomic factor values of the condenser, WW heat exchanger (WWHE) and fan-coil unit were lower than 0.5, indicating that the exergy destruction costs associated with these components were higher than the capital investments.