The Characteristics of the Evaporator/Evaporator for Direct Expansion Solar Assisted Heat Pump System

Abstract

Direct expansion solar assisted heat pump (DX-SAHP) technology is developed by combining solar energy heat utilization with heat pump energy saving technology. The experimental researches of the DX-SAHP hot water system are conducted in this paper, and overall performance of DX-SAHP is analyzed with three different structures of collectors/evaporators, namely a bare-plate collector, a glass-plate collector and double collectors/evaporators (a bare-plate collector and a glass-plate collector). The influence factors and overall performance are studied, which show that the overall performance of the system is mainly influenced by solar irradiation intensity and the collector area. Comparing with glass-plate collector in similar conditions, bare-plate collector system COP is higher. While increasing collector area is conducive to improve the system COP, but will reduce the collector efficiency and increase the workload of the compressor by comparing the bare-plate collector with double-plate collectors.