Experimental investigation of a gas engine-driven heat pump system for cooling and heating operation

The present work aimed at evaluating the performance of a gas engine driven heat pump (GEHP) for cooling and hot water supply. A test prototype working with R134a was built, and the cooling performance with hot water supply were experimented in a range of evaporator water inlet temperature from 12 °C to 22 °C, ambient air temperature from 24.2 °C to 37 °C, and gas engine speeds from 1400 rpm to 2000 rpm. The results show that the effects of evaporator water inlet temperature and gas engine speed on the system performance are more significant than those of ambient air temperature. Average hot water outlet temperatures between 40.7 °C and 61.7 °C are obtained over the considered range of the external operating parameters and this met the temperature demand of domestic water for shaving, residential dish washing, and laundry. Moreover, the primary energy ratio (PER2) of GEHP system is between 1.14 and 1.45 with waste heat recovery.