Performance comparison of a heating tower heat pump and an air-source heat pump: A comprehensive modeling and simulation study

The heating tower heat pump (HTHP) is proposed as an alternative to the conventional air-source heat pump (ASHP). To investigate the performance improvements of the HTHP over the ASHP, a comprehensive comparison between the two systems was carried out based on a simulation study. Physics-based models for the ASHP and HTHP were developed. The performance of the ASHP under frosting conditions was corrected with a newly developed frosting map, and the regeneration penalization was considered for the HTHP. Based on the models and corrections, hourly simulations were carried out in an office building in Nanjing, China. The results show that the average energy efficiency of the HTHP in summer is 23.1% higher than that of the ASHP due to the water-cooled approach adopted by the HTHP. In winter, the HTHP achieves an increase of 7.4% in efficiency due to the frost free and energy storage characteristics. While the initial cost of the HTHP is 1.2% higher than that of the ASHP, the HTHP can still save 9.7% cost in a 10-year period because of its lower power consumption.