An efficient CO2 air-to-water heat pump central space heating system in cold regions: A case study

Chengyan Xiong, Huilong Luo, Ke Ren, Xinyu Wang, Jiyuan Liu, Zidan Chen, Biyang Sun, Changlang Wu, Xiaochuan Yang and Peijian Du

Renewable Energy, 2025, vol. 242, issue C

Abstract: CO2 air-source heat pump is expected to play an important role in low-carbon space heating due to its advantages of environment-friendly and energy-saving. However, the severe performance degradation caused by lower ambient temperature and higher inlet water temperature seriously hinders its application. Herein, this research aims to develop an efficient CO2 air-to-water heat pump (CO2-AWHP) space heating system. By increasing suction enthalpy, reducing inlet water temperature and optimizing compressor frequency, a performance-enhanced CO2-AWHP was designed and built. The test results indicated that the heating capacity and coefficient of performance (COP) of the CO2-AWHP were as high as 71.53 kW and 2.10 respectively, under the conditions of ambient temperature of −12 °C, inlet water temperature of 35 °C and outlet water temperature of 65 °C. The proposed CO2-AWHP was applied to a central space heating system in Dalian, China. The test results showed that the CO2-AWHP space heating system could meet the thermal comfort requirements. Compared with traditional space heating systems, the primary energy consumption and CO2 emissions of the CO2-AWHP could be reduced by 57.54%–69.52% and 10.74%–57.59%, respectively. From the aspects of thermal comfort, energy-saving and environmental benefits, the proposed CO2-AWHP is an alternative way for clean space heating.

Keywords: CO2 refrigerant; Central space heating; Air source heat pump; Thermal comfort; Environmental benefit; Energy-saving (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148125000953
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:242:y:2025:i:c:s0960148125000953

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2025.122433

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().