Thermally Driven Heat Pumps for Heating and Cooling
Thermally driven heat pumps TDHPs for heating and cooling are now a well-established technology. First products are already on the market. However, the technology suffers from varied obstacles, such as regulations and normative/standards obstacles, as well as technological difficulties. Within this Annex both aspects are examined. First, an introduction to the two major representative technologies, namely absorption and adsorption is given. Those two techniques show some similarities in terms of operation and components but also have some differences. A detailed description of the underlying working principle is given. Second, a market analysis performed within this annex on a country level and on a global level point out that there is an increasing demand for heating and cooling application worldwide, therefore showing the high potential of the technology. On the one hand, climate change and increasing demand of comfort and more people being able to afford air conditioning, leads to an increase of heating and cooling demand. With this the general market and the specialty market for thermally driven heat pumps (TDHP) is increasing. Alternatively, higher standards in building construction and insolation technology are repressive. It is a matter of the country-specific boundary, the climate and the policy to allow TDHPs to enter the market.