Modelling and analysis of a ground source heat pump combined with a PV-T and earth energy storage system

This paper presents the development of a mathematical model for the analysis of a ground source heat pump unit combined with photovoltaic-thermal panels and an earth energy storage system. Each sub-system was modelled in MATLAB and then merged to form an overall model of the energy system. The model was used to analyse the performance of the energy system using several test scenarios. The test scenarios saw input data for winter, spring, summer and autumn conditions across the periods of 24 hours. The model was used to simulate the system with differing refrigerants, PV/T module sizes and earth energy bank storage sizes. The heat pump shows a Coeffient of Performance of approximately 5.0 throughout the test scenarios. It was observed that the summer conditions produce an increase in the energy stored within the ground, whilst the winter operation shows a reduction due to increased thermal demand in the building and reduced solar irradiance. The model was shown to be simple and effective to capture the operational characteristics of the combined energy system