Experimental and energy saving potential analysis of GSHP and ASAC systems using normalized sensitivity technique in cooling mode operation

ABSTRACTThe current investigation examines the experimental and energy-conservation analyses of 17.5 kW cooling capacity of a ground-source heat pump (GSHP) system and an air-source air-conditioning system (ASAC) of the same cooling capacity. Using experimental data and a sensitivity technique, the thermal efficiency of both the systems were evaluated. During the experiments conducted for cooling period in June 2022, the data for six-day operation were collected and the coefficient of performance of both the systems were evaluated. Notably, the GSHP system exhibited an average cooling capacity of 10 to 15 kW, whereas the ASAC maintained a range of 9 and 13 kW. The coefficient of performance (COP) for the GSHP system was obtained as 3.8, while the ASAC system COP was 2.9. The results indicate that the use of GSHP system results in an energy-saving of 10–40% in comparison to the ASAC system. Moreover, the present study included uncertainty and propagation analyses, along with sensitivity evaluations, with the objective of identifying the most influencing parameter on the derived parameters. Sensitivity analysis indicates outlet temperature of air from the evaporator is the most influencing parameter for the performance of both the systems.KEYWORDS: Ground-source heat pumpair-source air-conditioning systemenergy-savingsuncertainty and sensitivity analysiscooling mode operation AcknowledgementsThe experimental facilities for this research were provided by the Department of Architecture and Planning at IIT Roorkee supported by the Engineering and Physics Science Research Council (EPSRC) of the United Kingdom (EP/R00861) and the Government of India (ZED-i). The author would like to express gratitude for the assistantship provided by the Ministry of Human Resources and Development, India, as well as the National Institute of Hydrology in Roorkee for supplying the weather data necessary for this research project.Credit authorship contributionShammy Kumar Sah: Data interpretation, Writing-manuscript, Writing-review and editing, Numerical analysis, Methodology, Validation. Krishnan Murugesan: Supervision, Writing-review and editing. Elangovan Rajasekar: Supervision, Writing-review and editing.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).