Modelling of an Integrated Hybrid Ground Source Heat Pump and Solar Powered Absorption Air Conditioning System

Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) and Solar Powered Absorption Air Conditioning (SPAAC) are both clean, energy saving, sustainable energy technologies which have been well developed and widely used over the world. However, drawbacks of both systems still exist. For GSHP, the ground thermal energy imbalance caused by heat accumulation during the summer is bound to negatively affect the system performance over a period of usage. The low coefficient of performance (COP) of the SPAAC system requires a large area of solar thermal collector, which might be difficult to achieve especially in urban areas. In order to overcome the highlighted limitations, a novel hybrid system has been developed based on the concept of capturing part of the dissipated heat from the GSHP and then transferring it to the SPAAC as an auxiliary energy input. This was achieved by incorporating a dedicated desuperheater and an Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP) into the system. The expected benefits are to mitigate the heat accumulation problem in summer and reduce the amount of solar collector area. It is intended to use this model as the basis for future system design and optimization of a workable prototype.