Energetic and Exergetic Analysis of Low Global Warming Potential Refrigerants as Substitutes for R410A in Ground Source Heat Pumps

Sergio Bobbo, Laura Fedele, Marco Curcio, Anna Bet, Michele De Carli, Giuseppe Emmi, Fabio Poletto, Andrea Tarabotti, Dimitris Mendrinos, Giulia Mezzasalma and Adriana Bernardi
Additional contact information
Sergio Bobbo: Istituto per le Tecnologie della Costruzione, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, I-35127 Padova, Italy
Laura Fedele: Istituto per le Tecnologie della Costruzione, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, I-35127 Padova, Italy
Marco Curcio: Istituto per le Tecnologie della Costruzione, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, I-35127 Padova, Italy
Anna Bet: Istituto per le Tecnologie della Costruzione, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, I-35127 Padova, Italy
Michele De Carli: Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale, Università degli Studi di Padova, I-35131 Padua, Italy
Giuseppe Emmi: Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale, Università degli Studi di Padova, I-35131 Padua, Italy
Fabio Poletto: Hi-Ref S.p.A., I-35020 Tribano, Italy
Andrea Tarabotti: Hi-Ref S.p.A., I-35020 Tribano, Italy
Dimitris Mendrinos: Geothermal Energy Department, Centre for Renewable Energy Sources and Saving, 19009 Pikermi, Greece
Giulia Mezzasalma: RED Srl. Via le dell’Industria 58B, I-35127 Padova, Italy
Adriana Bernardi: Istituto di Scienze dell’Atmosfera e del Clima, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, I-35127 Padova, Italy

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 18, 1-16

Abstract: In the European Union (EU), buildings are responsible for about 40% of the total final energy consumption, and 36% of the European global CO 2 emissions. The European Commission released directives to push for the enhancement of the buildings energy performance and identified, beside the retrofit of the current building stock, Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems as the other main way to increase renewable energy sharing and overall building energy efficiency. For this purpose, Ground Source Heat Pumps (GSHPs) represent one of the most interesting technologies to provide energy for heating, cooling, and domestic water production in residential applications, ensuring a significant reduction (e.g., up to 44% compared with air-source heat pumps) of energy consumption and the corresponding emissions. At present, GSHPs mainly employ the refrigerant R410A as the working fluid, which has a Global Warming Potential (GWP) of 2087. However, following the EU Regulation No. 517/2014 on fluorinated greenhouse gases, this high GWP refrigerant will have to be substituted for residential applications in the next years. Thus, to increase the sustainability of GSHPs, it is necessary to identify short time alternative fluids with lower GWP, before finding medium-long term solutions characterized by very low GWP. This is one of the tasks of the UE project "Most Easy, Efficient, and Low-Cost Geothermal Systems for Retrofitting Civil and Historical Buildings" (acronym GEO4CIVHIC). Here, a thorough thermodynamic analysis, based on both energy and exergy analysis, will be presented to perform a comparison between different fluids as substitutes for R410A, considered as the benchmark for GSHP applications. These fluids have been selected considering their lower flammability with respect to hydrocarbons (mainly R290), that is one of the main concerns for the companies. A parametric analysis has been performed, for a reversible GSHP cycle, at various heat source and sink conditions, with the aim to identify the fluid giving the best energetic performance and to evaluate the distribution of the irreversibilities along the cycle. Considering all these factors, R454B turned out to be the most suitable fluid to use in a ground source heat pump, working at given conditions. Special attention has been paid to the compression phase and the heat transfer in evaporator and condenser.

Keywords: ground source heat pumps; low GWP refrigerants; energy analysis; R410A; R32; R454B (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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