Energy study in water loop heat pump systems for office buildings in the Iberian Peninsula

The energy consumption is analyzed for the air conditioning of an office building in four important cities of the Iberian Peninsula. A water loop heat pump (WLHP) system is compared with a conventional water system. Energy redistribution is an important advantage, but significant savings come from heat pumps high efficiency parameters and minor air flow rates in the cooling tower. Even using natural gas as energy source, 8.1% decrease of CO2 emissions is reached, but additional important reduction can be easily obtained by using a solar thermal energy system as energy source.