Performance Simulation of a Ground Source Heat Pump System Integrated with Solar Photovoltaic Thermal Collectors for Residential Applications

Abstract

This paper presents the simulation and performance evaluation of a ground source heat pump (GSHP) system integrated with water-based solar photovoltaic thermal (PVT) collectors for residential buildings. The proposed system utilizes geothermal energy and solar energy to provide space cooling and heating as well as domestic hot water (DHW), and offsets the need of grid electricity by generating electricity from the PV cells. A dynamic simulation system is developed using TRNSYS and used to facilitate the performance evaluation of the proposed system. A 20-year life-time performance simulation is performed under three operation scenarios with different sizes of the PVT collectors. The results showed that the performance of the proposed system is highly dependent on the size of the PVT collectors. For the case building studied, it is more effective to use the heat gathered by the PVT collectors to produce DHW if the area of the PVT collectors is less than 54 m2. Otherwise, it is better to use the thermal energy generated from the PVT collectors to recharge the ground during the transient periods and to provide space heating during the heating period. Furthermore, an economic analysis is carried out to determine the optimum size of the PVT collectors for the case study building. The results from this study demonstrate how building simulation offers the capability in analyzing and determining the optimal operation strategies for complex energy systems at the design stage.