High Temperature Heat Pump with Combined Cooling, Heat and Power Plant in Industrial Buildings: An Energy Analysis

In this paper, the coupling of a high temperature heat pump with a combined cooling, heat, and power system is investigated. The plant converts the input energy source (natural gas) into electricity and useful thermal energy by means of a cogenerator. Part of the thermal energy feeds an absorption chiller that produces the cooling energy to satisfy the cooling load of an existing industrial building located in northern Italy. The heat pump enhances the low temperature heat from the condenser and absorber of the absorption chiller to high temperature heat to integrate the hot water produced by the cogenerator. The energy performance of the entire plant is analyzed by means of steady-state simulations at both fixed conditions and on an annual operation to meet the heating, cooling, and electric needs of the building varying different parameters and compared to traditional systems for energy production. As the main results, the integrated system provides flexibility and achieves valuable energy performances, in the range of a few tens of percent with respect to benchmark energy production systems.