Performance study of a photovoltaic solar assisted heat pump with variable-frequency compressor – A case study in Tibet

The performance of a photovoltaic solar assisted heat pump (PV-SAHP) with variable-frequency compressor is reported in this paper. The system is a direct integration of photovoltaic/thermal solar collectors and heat pump. The solar collectors extract the required thermal energy from the heat pump and at the same time, the cooling effect of the refrigerant lowers the working temperature of the solar cells. So this combined system has a relatively high thermal performance with an improved photovoltaic efficiency. To adapt to the continuously changing solar radiation and ambient temperature conditions, the refrigerant mass flow rate should match the heat gain at the evaporator accordingly. A variable-frequency compressor and an electricity-operated expansion valve were used in the proposed system. Mathematical models were developed to evaluate the energy performance of the combined system based on the weather conditions of Tibet. The simulation results indicated that on a typical sunny winter day with light breeze, the average COP could reach 6.01, and the average electricity efficiency, thermal efficiency and overall efficiency were 0.135, 0.479 and 0.625 respectively.