Improving heat recovery using retrofitted heat pump in air handling unit with energy wheel

• Analysis on efficiency in an energy wheel heat recovery system, with and without retrofitted heat pump.
• Validated computer model of an energy wheel ventilation heat recovery system in TrnSys.
• Significant improvement of heat recovery rate in energy wheel heat recovery systems.
• Possibility to reduce environmental impact by reducing energy use in buildings.

The world is facing a challenge to reduce energy use to meet the environmental goals set for the future. One factor that has a great impact on the energy performance of buildings is the ventilation losses. To handle these losses, heat recovery systems with rotating heat exchanger are often implemented. These systems have been shown to recover about 60–70% of the energy in the exhaust air on an annual basis.After a heat recovery system is installed it is hard to improve the efficiency of the installed recovery system with an acceptable economic payback period. In the present paper one way to improve the energy performance of a building with this type of heat recovery system by the use of a heat pump is investigated by simulations in TrnSys.The heat pump system is arranged so that the evaporator is connected to a heat exchanger mounted in the exhaust airstream after the energy wheel, and the condenser of the heat pump is mounted so that the temperature of return water from the heating coil is increased.The simulations show that there is a possibility to increase the heat recovery rate of the air handling unit in a significant way by retrofitting a heat pump to the system.