Simulation of operation performance of a solar assisted ground heat pump system with phase change thermal storage for heating in a rural building in Xi'an

Abstract

Energy consumption for house heating in winter accounts for a large proportion of building energy consumption in rural buildings in western China. It is an alternative method to make full use of renewable energy for heating houses to save energy and cost. A solar assisted geothermal heat pump with phase change material heat storage tank (SAGHP-PCM) demo heating system in a rural building in Xi'an China was built up and the dynamic performance of the SAGHP-PCM heating system was simulated in different control strategies. The results show that PCM module can improve the heating effects, moreover, optimized control strategy selected by comparison can bring a better operation way and save electric energy by using solar energy as whole energy source for heating in 753 hours, and the heating performance is acceptable meanwhile. The simulated average temperature of the optimized system is 17.62?C and the guarantee hours is 3379 h when taking 16?C as qualified indoor temperature.