Experimental thermal performance of a solar source heat-pump system for residential heating in cold climate region

Solar source heat pump systems present tremendous environmental benefits when compared to the conventional systems for residential applications. In addition to not exhausting natural resources, their main advantage is, in most cases, total absence of almost any air emissions or waste products. In order to investigate the performance of a solar source and energy stored heat-pump system in the province of Erzurum, an experimental set-up was constructed, which consisted of twelve flat-plate solar collector, a sensible heat energy storage tank, a water-to-water plate heat exchanger, a liquid-to-liquid vapor compression heat pump, water circulating pumps and other measurement equipments. The experiments were carried out from January to June of 2004 and, the collector efficiency (eta(c)), the heat pump coefficient of performance (COP) and the system performance (COPS) were calculated. In these months performed of the experiments, the outdoor temperature range varies from -10.8 degrees C to -14.6 degrees C. This study shows that the system could be used for residential heating in the province of Erzurum having the coldest climate of Turkey. (c) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.