AC-83-11-1 -- Solar Heat Pump Systems with Refrigerant-Filled Collectors PDF

The heat pump system with a refrigerant-filled evaporator consists of a standard air-to-air or air-to-liquid heat pump that utilizes a solar panel as the evaporator. A combination of solar energy and convection heat transfer acts as the "free" energy absorbed by the collector/evaporator. In this paper, the seasonal performance of such systems for industrial applications will be presented. Performance of collector/evaporator heat pumps will be compared with alternative heat pump and solar systems. The benefits of covered and coverless collector/evaporators will be discussed. Results to date have shown that refrigerant-filled collector heat pumps do not perform as well as conventional heat pumps at small collector areas but have as much as 15% performance improvement over conventional heat pumps at an appropriate collector area.