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Title: Performance Evaluation of the ThermoLift Natural Gas Fired Air Conditioner and Cold-Climate Heat Pump

Abstract

ThermoLift is currently developing its Thermal Compression Heat Pump (TCHP™), a natural-gas driven air conditioner and cold-climate heat pump, which can provide space heating, water heating, and air conditioning simultaneously in a single device. The system has broad application as a combined heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) solution with the benefit of substantial energy, cost, and greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions. Unlike traditional vapor compression heat-pumps, the TCHP™ uses helium as a working fluid in place of high global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants. The development effort has produced three iterations or generations of prototypes with advancement of the technology readiness level (TRL) from TRL-1 (TCHP™ Gen 1.0) to TRL-5 (TCHP™ Gen 3.0). In August of 2013, the US DOE solicited the submission of proposals through funding opportunity announcement DE-FOA-0000823, Building Technologies Innovations Program. The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) subsequently accepted ThermoLift’s proposal to develop a heat pump system based on the Hofbauer cycle, a new cycle that supplants the Vuilleumier cycle and provided funding for prototype evaluation at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). ORNL is a widely known research center for developing and evaluating building technologies. Through its Building Technologies Research and Integration Center, ORNL has uniquemore » capabilities which allows them to collaborate with industry and academia to advance building component technologies. The TCHP™ Gen 3.0 prototype was shipped to ORNL on July 23, 2018. After installation and integration of the heat pump into ORNL’s test facility and performing instrumentation validation and calibration, extended operation of the heat pump was achieved during continuous operation on August 6, 2018, and includes various heating and cooling temperature ranges and performance analysis. The Gen 3.0 prototype was evaluated at four “ambient” temperatures: −25°C, −8.33°C, 8.33°C, and 20°C, (−13°F, 17°F, 47°F, and 68°F) denoted as test points 1-4, respectively. For heating, cycle coefficients of performance (COP) at the four “ambient” temperatures were found to be 1.30, 1.46, 1.52, and 1.61, respectively. Furthermore, there is no capacity reduction as the inlet temperature to the cold heat exchanger (HX) decreases. The heating capacity delivered by the TCHP was found to be 12 kW at -25°C. Finally, this final report identifies measures for obtaining further efficiency improvements.« less

Authors:
 [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [1];  [1]
  1. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Energy Efficiency Office. Building Technologies Office
OSTI Identifier:
1564173
Report Number(s):
ORNL/LTR-2019/1288
DOE Contract Number:  
AC05-00OR22725
Resource Type:
Technical Report
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

Citation Formats

Hofbauer, Peter, Sharma, Vishaldeep, Haas, Jonathan, Brehob, Diana, and Schwartz, Paul. Performance Evaluation of the ThermoLift Natural Gas Fired Air Conditioner and Cold-Climate Heat Pump. United States: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.2172/1564173.
Hofbauer, Peter, Sharma, Vishaldeep, Haas, Jonathan, Brehob, Diana, & Schwartz, Paul. Performance Evaluation of the ThermoLift Natural Gas Fired Air Conditioner and Cold-Climate Heat Pump. United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/1564173
Hofbauer, Peter, Sharma, Vishaldeep, Haas, Jonathan, Brehob, Diana, and Schwartz, Paul. 2019. "Performance Evaluation of the ThermoLift Natural Gas Fired Air Conditioner and Cold-Climate Heat Pump". United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/1564173. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1564173.
@article{osti_1564173,
title = {Performance Evaluation of the ThermoLift Natural Gas Fired Air Conditioner and Cold-Climate Heat Pump},
author = {Hofbauer, Peter and Sharma, Vishaldeep and Haas, Jonathan and Brehob, Diana and Schwartz, Paul},
abstractNote = {ThermoLift is currently developing its Thermal Compression Heat Pump (TCHP™), a natural-gas driven air conditioner and cold-climate heat pump, which can provide space heating, water heating, and air conditioning simultaneously in a single device. The system has broad application as a combined heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) solution with the benefit of substantial energy, cost, and greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions. Unlike traditional vapor compression heat-pumps, the TCHP™ uses helium as a working fluid in place of high global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants. The development effort has produced three iterations or generations of prototypes with advancement of the technology readiness level (TRL) from TRL-1 (TCHP™ Gen 1.0) to TRL-5 (TCHP™ Gen 3.0). In August of 2013, the US DOE solicited the submission of proposals through funding opportunity announcement DE-FOA-0000823, Building Technologies Innovations Program. The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) subsequently accepted ThermoLift’s proposal to develop a heat pump system based on the Hofbauer cycle, a new cycle that supplants the Vuilleumier cycle and provided funding for prototype evaluation at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). ORNL is a widely known research center for developing and evaluating building technologies. Through its Building Technologies Research and Integration Center, ORNL has unique capabilities which allows them to collaborate with industry and academia to advance building component technologies. The TCHP™ Gen 3.0 prototype was shipped to ORNL on July 23, 2018. After installation and integration of the heat pump into ORNL’s test facility and performing instrumentation validation and calibration, extended operation of the heat pump was achieved during continuous operation on August 6, 2018, and includes various heating and cooling temperature ranges and performance analysis. The Gen 3.0 prototype was evaluated at four “ambient” temperatures: −25°C, −8.33°C, 8.33°C, and 20°C, (−13°F, 17°F, 47°F, and 68°F) denoted as test points 1-4, respectively. For heating, cycle coefficients of performance (COP) at the four “ambient” temperatures were found to be 1.30, 1.46, 1.52, and 1.61, respectively. Furthermore, there is no capacity reduction as the inlet temperature to the cold heat exchanger (HX) decreases. The heating capacity delivered by the TCHP was found to be 12 kW at -25°C. Finally, this final report identifies measures for obtaining further efficiency improvements.},
doi = {10.2172/1564173},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1564173}, journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Sun Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 2019},
month = {Sun Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 2019}
}