Performance of a Solar Assisted Heat Pump for Building Heating: Control Problems and Improvements

Abstract

Palacus project is a solar assisted heat pump pilot plant in Genoa, Italy. The heat pump combined with solar hybrid photovoltaic thermal panels provides both electrical energy from the solar irradiation and hot water sent into the heat pump circuit. The photovoltaic field covers the energy need of the heat pump and it is even capable of producing extra electrical energy, stored in the national grid through a net-metering, looking for an energetically independent installation. The benefits coming from the net-metering, considered during the design stage, reduced dramatically due to a change in Italian laws concerning feed-in-premium. A brief report on the global facility performance during the past two years is proposed, proving the difficulties of the plant to reach its maximum design potential due to its complexity and problems related to the end users’ “acceptance”. Possible strategies to restore or increase the economic balance of the facility are discussed according to the new feed-in-premium criteria. Supervision and detection of any failure of the plant are performed by means of a large data acquisition system. New related regulation criteria, presented in this work, are compulsory to optimise the plant.

The experience on a sport centre pilot plant with solar assisted heat pump and a look forward for new control strategies and technology upgrade

“…The yearly PV production of the solar field and the yearly HP consumption in Table 1 show good agreement with the expected performances [3]. Nevertheless, about 15% of the expected PV electricity is lost, due to the aging of the panels and the rupture of some of them.…”

“…According to the current net metering criterion (monthly energy balance instead of a yearly one) the same installation would loses its convenience since only about 40% of the total need of the HP is covered by the solar hybrid field, as shown in [3]. This dramatic change depends on the electricity produced and lost during summer since the heating plant is inactive.…”

“…For instance, in case of solar panels, the available surface in civil buildings is often small and the capturing surface installed cannot cover the entire needs of the building/flat. On the other hand, the problem becomes more relevant as the plant increases its scale (and therefore consumptions) for instance in industrial applications or for heating systems of public buildings (for example sport palaces), as shown in [1] - [3]. As a consequence, the self-production and selfconsumption become the principal targets both to have economic benefits from the plant management and to mainly supply the electricity need by means of renewable sources.…”

Residential Buildings Heating and Cooling Systems: The Key Role of Monitoring Systems and Real-Time Analysis in the Detection of Failures and Management Strategy Optimization

“…In Ref. [32], Tagliafico et al indirectly highlighted some benefits of monitoring the heating/cooling system by extracting information on the status and performance of the system. In particular, the acquired data allowed them to demonstrate the non-optimised management and maintenance of the heating system, resulting in lack of performance and in several system stops, respectively.…”