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com/buildings/heat-pumps
Heat Pumps
Heat pumps move heat from one place to another. Some can pump heat both out of and into a building,
for cooling or heating. Air conditioners (or "chillers" for large-scale systems) are a kind of heat pump that
can only pump heat out of a building, but can do it slightly more efficiently than bi-directional heat
pumps.

Small-scale heat pumps.

Heat pumps are important for efficient HVAC systems because moving heat can use less energy than
generating heat. Heat generators can never be more than 100% efficient because the energy they use is
directly creating heat, but heat pumps effectively can because they just move heat from one place to
another. However, based on the operating environment, sometimes boilers are more effective. This is
the case particularly in cold outdoor temperatures (below 5C or 40F).
To think about moving heat rather than generating it, imagine a tanker truck driving fuel from one place
to another--the truck may be hauling thousands of liters of fuel as cargo, but truck's own gas tank only
holds a few dozen gallons, because that's all the fuel it needs to burn to carry the load to its destination.
In the same way, heat pump move heat energy as cargo, using a bit of electric energy to do so.

Heat pumps can move several units of heat energy per unit of electricity
Measuring Efficiency
There are many ways to measure the effectiveness of a heat pump:
COP (coefficient of performance) is the simplest measurement. It measures the amount of heat energy
moved (in watts), divided by the electric energy used to move it (also in watts), at a given outdoor
temperature. Higher COP values indicate a more efficient system. An electric resistance heater
generating heat at 100% efficiency will have COP = 1, while a heat pump in heating mode ranges from a
COP of 2 to 5, and a heat pump in cooling mode ranges from 3 to 12.
EER (energy efficiency ratio) is similar to COP, but for only for cooling. It measures how efficiently a
cooling system operates. EER is most commonly applied to window units and smaller standalone air
conditioners and heat pumps. The EER is the ratio of Btu/hr of cooling divided by the watts of electricity
used at an outside temperature of 95F (35C). Room air conditioners should have an EER of at least 9.0
for mild climates and over 10.0 for hot climates.
SEER (seasonal energy efficiency ratio) measures how efficiently a smaller residential air conditioner or
heat pump operates over an entire cooling season, as opposed to a single outdoor temperature. As with
EER, a higher SEER reflects a more efficient cooling system. SEER is the ratio of the total amount of
cooling Btu's the system provides over the entire season divided by the total number of watt-hours it
consumes.
HSPF (heating seasonal performance factor) measures how efficiently heat pumps operate in heating
mode over an entire heating season. It is like SEER but for heating. The higher the HSPF, the more
efficient the system. HSPF is calculated by dividing the total number of Btu's of heat delivered over the
heating season by the total number of watt-hours of electricity required to deliver that heat.
kW/ton measures the energy input in kW over the tons of cooling provided. Unlike other metrics, the
lower the ratio, the more efficient the chiller. This metric is most often used to determine efficiency of
large-scale chillers.
Operating Mode Design Rated Conditions Seasonal Average Conditions
Cooling COP COP
EER SEER
kW/ton
Heating COP COP
HSPF
Table of different heat pump efficiency measures(from Engineering Toolbox)
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How Heat Pumps Work
Heat pumps work the same way a refrigerator does--by having a gas condense to liquid and then expand
again, within a loop of rigid tubing that extends from the hot side to the cold side. This moves heat
because of the ideal gas law, which says that as pressure increases, temperature increases; as pressure
decreases, temperature decreases.
Thus, when the gas expands on one side of the tubing loop, its temperature decreases and it pulls heat
into it from the surroundings. This becomes the cold side of the loop. The gas is then pumped to the
other side of the loop and pressurized by an electric compressor until it becomes a liquid. This rise in
pressure raises the temperature, so the liquid pushes heat out to its surroundings. This becomes the hot
side of the loop. After dumping its heat outside, the fluid goes through a valve to allow it to expand to a
gas again on the other side of the loop, starting the cycle over.
 Diagram of a heat pump cycle, in cooling mode

Diagram of a heat pump cycle, in heating mode

In theory, one side of the tubing loop is indoors while the other is outdoors, but in reality this is usually
costly and difficult to plumb, because the loop's "working fluid" is a volatile gas. These gases should not
be allowed to escape, because they usually have adverse environmental impacts such as climate change
and ozone depletion. Thus, usually both sides of the loop are in the heat pump unit, and the "indoor"
side contacts indoor air brought to it by a duct, or contacts a separate loop of water that circulates to
ducts or radiant systems.

Heat Pump Sources

Air
Air-Source Heat Pumps dump their exhaust heat (or cooling) to the outside air. They are the vast
majority of heat pump systems. For large chillers, the unit dumping heat into the outside air is usually
called the cooling tower. http://www.energysavers.gov/your_home/space_heating_cooling/index.cfm/mytopic=12620
 Cooling tower for a moderate-sized commercial HVAC system
Air source heat pumps are popular because they are the least expensive and easiest to install, as they do
not require digging into the earth or extensive piping systems. However, they lose efficiency when
heating buildings on cold days (below 5C / 40F).
Earth
Ground Source Heat Pumps (GSHP, or geothermal heat pumps) dump their exhaust heat (or cooling)
to the ground instead of the air. Because the ground stays at a relatively stable temperature all year,
they can be much more efficient than air source heat pumps on very hot or cold days.
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Ground temperature stays relatively constant while air temperature varies wildly
All ground source heat pumps work by pumping a heat-conductive fluid (usually water or propylene
glycol) through loops of pipe in the ground. "Horizontal" systems install the pipes by digging a shallow (1-
3 m / 3-8 ft. deep) but wide trench in the ground, laying coils of pipe, and covering it back up with earth.
"Vertical" systems dig deep but narrow wells (usually 30-150 m / 100-500 ft. deep). Horizontal systems
are less expensive to install, but take more land area and do not have as stable ground temperature as
deeper wells.
 Installing horizontal (top) and vertical (bottom) plumbing of ground source heat pumps (wikimedia
commons source) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:3-ton_Slinky_Loop.jpg
The disadvantage of ground source heat pumps is that the digging and plumbing required to install them
is expensive. A medium-sized commercial building might require hundreds of wells to be dug and
plumbed for a GSHP system.
Water
Some ground source heat pumps actually use rivers, ponds, or other bodies of water for their heat sink.
Closed-loop systems use effectively the same hardware and work the same way as ground source heat
pumps.
However, it is also possible to install open-loop systems, whose pipes are literally open to the stream.
These pull water in one end, bring it to the heat pump where heat is dumped into it or pulled from it,
and pump the newly heated or cooled water back into the river downstream. These can also use
groundwater from separate wells, pumping from one into another.

Installing a water-source heat pump by sinking coils of pipe

Water-source heat pumps have the performance advantages of ground-source heat pumps, and can
even perform better due to waters high conductivity and high heat capacity. They can also be less
expensive to install, depending on the local conditions. However, they are of course limited to sites
where a body of water (or hidden groundwater) is convenient, and where the extra heating or cooling
will not disrupt the waters ecosystem.
Absorption Chillers
Absorption chillers http://www.energysavers.gov/your_home/space_heating_cooling/index.cfm/mytopic=12680
are heat pumps in which the compression and evaporation of the working fluid is not controlled by an
electrically-powered pump, but instead driven by an external heat source.
In absorption chillers, the gaseous working fluid is absorbed by a second chemical, such as ammonia,
which brings it back to a liquid state. The second chemical is then driven off by heat and the working
fluid is returned to the cooling loop as a liquid.
 An absorption chiller's dual cycle. (Click to enlarge.)
Absorption chillers are significantly less efficient than electrically-pumped units (with COPs around .7 to
1.2), but they can operate off of waste heat. In these cases, their efficiency is unimportant, because the
energy source is free and does not cause any environmental impacts to use.
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This is the same technology used by gas-powered refrigerators.