Renewable Energy Essay - Heat Pumps

Journal club summary and critique
assignment for Renewable Energy

Engineering module
Heat pumps and our

low-carbon future: a
comprehensive review
Energy research and social science
Lucas Washington Santa Rita Santana
20/12/2020
1. SUMMARY OF THE BACKGROUND AND GOALS OF THE WORK DONE
1.1 Objectives and goals of this paper
The paper analysed aims to provide a review from previous works (literature review
from 2000 to 2020) that cover many aspects of heat pumps and their importance in lowering
the emission of carbon of the heating sector. Moreover, its goal is to examine recent
technological advances of heat pumps and their roles in adding flexibility to renewable-rich
systems and carbon abatement.
1.2 Heat pumps description
Heat pump is a system that “pumps” heat into a place. It converts low grade heat into
a high grade heat, extracting it from an external source such as ambient air and then is
transferred by a refrigerant that passes through a condenser where this heat is exchanged
and finally can be used to provide warm air to a room or water.
The authors summarize all types of heat pumps existents in the present market and its
application. In the article, it is described how the system of every heat pump works and it
makes comparison amongst all types in terms of the average coefficient of performance
(COP), economic aspects such as installation cost, environmental impact and positive and
negative traits.
Figure 1 - Types of heat pumps

2. METHODOLOGY
The authors did an extensive research, basing their review on articles from 2000 until
2020 related to heat pumps. In this period, research on this topic increased exponentially due
to international pressure to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emission. The two countries that
produces research the most on this topic are United States and China and also they are on
the top list when is about carbon emission due to their large industry.
The literature was searched by using Scopus and Google Scholar as main search
engines, using keywords such as “heat pumps”, “GHG emission” and “decarbonisation”.
This review article is mainly divided in four aspects:
• Heat pumps technology - briefly describes how every type of heat pump works and
compares them.
• Flexibility - the potential that heat pumps can offer in reducing the electricity load (up
to 65%) by using control equipment, thermal energy storage systems and
management strategies which in turn reduce costs and save energy.
• Mathematical model - explain about building static and dynamic models in order to
assess the impacts and performance of heat pumps under various scenarios. The
static model is used for improving the design and assessing the reduction in renewable
electricity generation. This approach works better when all the conditions and
components are known. The dynamic model is used to optimize the heat pump design
and operating conditions under practical circumstances. Softwares such as fluent,
OpenGeoSys and TRNSYS can be used to simulate various scenarios and physical
behaviour.
• Barriers - the barriers that affect the growth rate of this technology in the market are
demonstrated in this article and divided in five categories:
o Policy - lack of regulation, legal support and investment in research and
development in this area.
o Public acceptance: lack of awareness from society in general towards this
technology and low acceptance due to possible noise pollution.
o Economic - as heat pumps require a high upfront investment and longer return,
it is difficult for this product to enter in the market, mostly when there is already
a cheaper source of heat available such as natural gas.
o Regulatory - Difficulty to build heat pumps systems due to regulations. Lack of
understanding of the technology and personnel training.
o Technological - Heat pumps require electrical input to operate. Therefore,
increasing the use of it can cause an overload on the power grid. Higher
investment in infrastructure is required in order to implement this technology in
large scale.
3. RESULTS AND INTERPRETATION OF THE RESULTS
According to the results of this article, the solar assisted heat pump has the highest
coefficient of performance amongst all others and is due to the usage of solar panels which
provides electricity and heat input thus reducing the demand of electricity from the grid.
Moreover, this system has a significant reduction on emissions (up to 50%). The negative
aspects are related to the extra control mechanisms to optimize the operation and the change
in performance throughout the year in some location due to different climate conditions.
On the other hand, sorption heat pumps have the lowest COP amongst all others with
an average of 1.8. However, it has lower environment impact as its working fluid do not cause
ozone depletion. Moreover, it can utilise waste heat from sewage and brine.
4. IMPLICATIONS OF FINDINGS TO RENEWABLE ENERGY AND OTHER RELATED

FIELDS
The results of this research are of paramount importance for the growth rate of this
technology. As cited before, one of the barriers of implementing heat pumps is lack of
awareness and this article can be a great asset in adding knowledge to engineers. Although
it has a basic approach when detailing each type of heat pump, it is very clear to notice the
differences between them and the applications that best suit each one of them. Therefore, this
paper can be also of some support when choosing right type of heat pump for a specific
application.
The heating sector, according to this article, is the most energy and carbon-intensive
in the European Union, accounting for 50% of the total energy demand, thereby 75% is
supplied by fossil fuels. Thus, increasing the usage of heat pumps by investing more in
infrastructure and developing programs to stimulate acceptance from the public along with
regulations and policies reform, could reduce considerably the emission of greenhouse gases.
5. DISCUSSION OF STRENGTHS, LIMITATIONS AND WEAKNESSES OF THE ARTICLE
The positive aspects of this article is that it has a well made literature review from
previous work. It brings some important details on the applications of heat pumps that it would
require an extensive research to find in the internet. For example, the section that analyses
the combination of heat pumps with other systems and the flexibility potential section are key
topics for engineers to improve the design and performance of this technology.
On the other hand, the article has a very basic approach and does not require a lot of
technical knowledge. It does not show much in depth about each type of heat pump. In another
words, it only gives a general idea. In addition, there are some spelling errors such as “gird”,
when it should be written “grid”.
NOTE: I found this assignment very interesting and effective. I have never done anything like
that before and it was such a great experience to comment on somebody else’s work. I chose
a paper that also would be related to my research project so it helped me also to narrow down
my questions and answers to be presented on my thesis.

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Journal club summary and critique

assignment for Renewable Energy

Heat pumps and our

Lucas Washington Santa Rita Santana

1.1 Objectives and goals of this paper

1.2 Heat pumps description

Figure 1 - Types of heat pumps

3. RESULTS AND INTERPRETATION OF THE RESULTS

4. IMPLICATIONS OF FINDINGS TO RENEWABLE ENERGY AND OTHER RELATED

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