Heating and Cooling Universal System Sourced by New Type of Heat Pump

What is it about?

At present closed and open loop geothermal heat pumps are in use. Nevertheless, they have disadvantages, which seriously limit their wide use. First disadvantage is the shortage of rather large free areas for laying underground heat exchangers in form of rather long pipelines. This problem arises especially in towns and large cities. Second disadvantage is the rather expensive and often not affordable construction of heating and cooling systems, sourced by heat pumps. For overcoming mentioned disadvantages and increasing energy efficiency and cost effectiveness of heating and cooling systems a new structure of heat pump and method for its calculation and design are suggested. Because the developed heat pump is able round year efficiently satisfying thermal needs for different purposes of a house it is called “universal heat pump”.

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Why is it important?

The suggested water-ice storage heat pump heating and cooling universal system of houses can find wide application because of rather simple structure and high energy efficiency. The proposed method for calculation and design can be accepted by designing enterprises to use it in practice of developing advanced technological solutions in the field of heat and cold supply of buildings. The water storage tank does not need thermal insulation, as it is located in the ground, which plays the roles of both insulation and partial heat source. The 6089.3 kW.h/year annual consumption of electricity for heat and cold supply of a house with 500m3 of volume (or 12.2 kW.h/m3 per year) prove the high energy efficiency of suggested system. As the system round year operates by energy regeneration principal, energy wastes are negligible, as a result the system provides highly efficient wintertime heating and almost free of charge summertime cooling. Compared with open and closed loop geothermal heat pumps, developed universal heat pump does not cause damages e.g., erosion of ground, sedimentation, toxic antifreeze solutions and because of compactness can be widely implemented in both urban and rural busy areas. The proposed method and formulas for determination of correlation between high and low potential heat sources is helpful for heat pump designers. Bigger the served building and colder and longer the heating season, bigger the volume of water storage tank and vice versa. In most cases the volume of the underground water storage tank makes about 9.5 to 15% of the volumes of served buildings and does not occupy free areas of the buildings’ yards.

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