Detailed Thermo-Economic Assessment of a Heat Pump for Industrial Applications

Guillermo Martínez-Rodríguez (), Cristobal Díaz- de-León, Amanda L. Fuentes-Silva, Juan-Carlos Baltazar and Rafael García-Gutiérrez
Additional contact information
Guillermo Martínez-Rodríguez: Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Guanajuato, Noria Alta s/n, Guanajuato 36050, Mexico
Cristobal Díaz- de-León: Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Guanajuato, Noria Alta s/n, Guanajuato 36050, Mexico
Amanda L. Fuentes-Silva: Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Guanajuato, Noria Alta s/n, Guanajuato 36050, Mexico
Juan-Carlos Baltazar: Energy Systems Laboratory, Texas A & M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES), Texas A & M University, 3581 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843, USA
Rafael García-Gutiérrez: Departamento de Investigación en Física, Universidad de Sonora (UNISON), Hermosillo 83000, Mexico

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 6, 1-12

Abstract: Heat pump electricity costs grow with a power relationship as the evaporator temperature in the cycle decreases. The thermo-economic study of a solar thermal-assisted heat pump and storage system determines the minimum cost of the coupled system for an evaporator temperature. Through two case studies, one for the dairy industry and the other for 2G bioethanol production, the coupled system was evaluated for different temperatures in the evaporator, from 30 to 90 °C, and the minimum cost of the coupled system was determined. For the dairy industry, the lowest levelized total cost of a heat pump (LCOE) at 50 °C is 0.0799 USD/kWh. The evaluation carried out allowed us to determine the best operating conditions of the heat pump: 50 °C in the evaporator, COP = 4.2, and the work of the compressor of 211.3 kW. In the case of 2G anhydrous bioethanol production, the lowest levelized energy cost is 0.0409 USD/kWh for an evaporator temperature of 30 °C and a payback of 1.8 years. The study carried out makes it possible to guarantee the supply of the heat load at the operating temperature of the process and determines the impact of environmental conditions on the cost of the heat pump assisted with solar thermal energy.

Keywords: heat pump; low temperature heat source; thermo-economic assessment; coefficient of performance; refrigerant R-1234ze (E); evaporator temperatures; operating conditions; renewable energy (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: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/6/2784/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/6/2784/ (text/html)

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:gam:jeners:v:16:y:2023:i:6:p:2784-:d:1099765

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().