Experimental investigation on heating performance of a gas engine-driven heat pump system with R410A

Abstract

• A novel energy-efficient GHP experimental platform is designed based on scroll compressors with R410A. • The effects of five factors on heating performances of the GHP system are systematically investigated. • The mode-4, which only recovers waste heat using the heating water, can improve the heating performance of the GHP system. • In mode-4, the PER is between 0.981 and 2.155, and the rate of waste heat recovery is between 49.12 % and 77.70 %. In this study, the performance characteristics of a gas engine-driven heat pump (GHP) system for heating applications were experimentally investigated. A novel energy-efficient air-source GHP experimental platform was designed based on scroll compressors with R410A. The changes in heating capacity ( Q h ), gas consumption power ( P gas ), compressor power ( P comp ), primary energy ratio ( PER ), and coefficient of performance ( COP ) were obtained under varying conditions of condenser water flow rate G w (6.10–15.25 m 3 /h), water inlet temperature t w,in (24.0–44.2 ℃), engine speed N eng (1200–2400 r/min), and ambient air temperature T amb (−15–7 ℃). The performances of the four heating modes (mode-1 to mode-4) were compared at an ambient air temperature of −20 ℃. The results showed that t w,in , N eng , and T amb had significant influences on heating performance, whereas G w had a slight impact. Compared with other heating modes, mode-4, wherein the recovered waste heat was only transferred to the heating water, could improve the heating performance of the GHP system. In the mode-4 heating experiments, PER was between 0.981 and 2.155, the rate of waste heat recovery was between 49.12 % and 77.70 %, and the engine thermal efficiency was between 27.02 % and 33.24 %.