Solar-assisted ground source heat pump system operated in heating mode: A case study in Tunisia

Abstract

The endeavor of this paper is to investigate the feasibility of a solar-assisted ground source heat pump (SAGSHP) system for space heating in the climatic condition of Northern Tunisia. Therefore, an experimental set-up was installed and tested in the Research and Technology Center of Energy. The SAGSHP system consists of a ground source heat pump (GSHP) system with a horizontal ground heat exchanger and a buried tank, buried both 1 m deep, and a solar flat-plate collector (SFC) with an area of 2 m2 as an auxiliary heat source. Two configurations are set and technically evaluated: (a) space heating by SFC only, and (b) SAGSHP. The results show that: (a) standalone SFC for heating increases the indoor air temperature by about 3 °C, but it cannot guarantee thermal comfort (22 °C), and (b) The tested SAGSHP achieves a significant high performance for space heating.An exergetic analysis proves high performance of the SAGSHP system, in addition an economic evaluation shows good cost-benefit of the SAGSHP system as compared to other conventional heating systems.