Paper No 430 – Performance of a new ultra-high temperature industrial heat pump – 14th IEA Heat Pump Conference, Chicago, USA
This paper presents a new ultra-high temperature heat pump, working on the Stirling cycle, with helium as working medium. The heat pump can generate heat up to 200°C from sources as low as -10°C with high energy efficiency. A 400 kW prototype installation at a biogas facility is described, where the heat pump supplies steam and cooling to the CO2 capture process. The performance of the heat pump is presented across a wide range of source and sink temperatures, in terms of heating capacity and share of Carnot COP. The experimental setup is described in detail, as well as the simulation model used for comparing simulated and experimental data. The performance figures are compared with published data for other heat pump cycles used for high temperature heat pumping. The results indicate that helium heat pumps may be more efficient than vapor compression heat pumps for temperature ratios above 1.3 K/K (sink temperature/source temperature).