Fort Hare Institute of Technology, Private Bag X1314, Alice 5700, South Africa
Tangwe, S., Fort Hare Institute of Technology, Private Bag X1314, Alice 5700, South Africa; Simon, M., Fort Hare Institute of Technology, Private Bag X1314, Alice 5700, South Africa; Meyer, E., Fort Hare Institute of Technology, Private Bag X1314, Alice 5700, South Africa
Air source heat pump unlike water and geothermal source heat pumps are widely used in sanitary hot water production by virtue of the relative ease of harvesting, low grade aero-thermal energy and less complexity in operating and maintaining the heat pump unit. This research focused on performance monitoring of 1.2kW air source heat pump, retrofitting a 200L high pressure storage tank and operating under first hour heating rating for seven different climatic conditions. A data acquisition system was designed and built to measure the desired predictors of the power consumption and coefficient of performance of the ASHP water heater. A robust mathematical multiple linear regression models were built and were used in the modeled blocks in the simulation application developed in Simulink of MATLAB. Results indicated that the maximum coefficient of performance was associated with the maximum power consumption of the ASHP water heater. Finally, the simulation application could also be used by ASHP manufacturers and the energy saving company to quantify the energy reduced when geysers are retrofitted by ASHP. Optimization using constrained linear least squares solver in the optimization toolbox was also used to eliminate errors in the measurement from inclusion into the mathematical models. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.
Computer simulation; Heating rate; Linear regression; Mathematical models; MATLAB; Measurement errors; Retrofitting; Water heaters; Coefficient of Performance; Constrained linear least squares; Data acquisition system; First hour heating rating (FHHR); Mathematical modeling and simulation; Multiple linear regression models; Multiple linear regressions; Simulation applications; Air source heat pumps; climate conditions; energy conservation; heating; manufacturing; mathematical analysis; numerical model; optimization; performance assessment; temperature effect; visualization