Performance of a cold storage air-cooled heat pump system with phase change materials for space cooling

Abstract

This paper studies the performance of a cold storage heat pump system integrated with phase change materials (PCMs) for space cooling. An air-cooled heat pump unit comprising of two constant rotation speed compressors is selected. The PCM is an organic material that is commercially available, and has a phase change temperature of 10–12 °C. A coupled computational heat transfer model of the heat pump unit, fan coil units, and a cold storage tank filled with PCM slabs is developed. The simulations are performed under the climatic condition of Fuzhou, China. The operational behaviors of the cold charging and discharging processes of the system are analyzed. Furthermore, the overall electrical energy and electricity charge consumptions at various indoor temperature set points are compared. The results indicate that, the electrical energy consumption of the cold storage heat pump system increases as the indoor temperature increases. However, there is very little difference in the electrical energy consumption of the conventional heat pump system and the cold storage system. While under the demand tariff, the electricity charge saving ratio of the cold storage system over the conventional system is 9.07%-11.28%. In general, as the indoor temperature set point reduces, the electricity charge saving ratio increases. Moreover, the effect of cold charging temperature is also discussed. It is found that higher cold charging temperature consumes less electrical energy, however, takes longer to store the same amount of cold, and the differences relies on the required amount of cold.