Experimental study on the cogeneration performance of roll-bond-PVT heat pump system with single stage compression during summer

Highlights: • RB-PVTHP system with novel RB-PVT unit has been proposed and investigated. • The cogeneration performance evaluation method has been proposed. • This is a highly efficient system with considerable cogeneration performance. • System can work in a long-term stable condition during summer in northern China. -- Abstract: Photovoltaic thermal (PVT) heat pump technology refers to the integration of photovoltaic and solar heat pump, representing the deep exploitation and utilization of solar energy. In this paper, roll-bond-PVT heat pump (RB-PVTHP) system with single stage compression is proposed and investigated experimentally. The roll-bond-PVT (RB-PVT) unit is introduced in detail which is combined with the photovoltaic module and single-sided roll-bond evaporation heat exchanger laminating together. The designed experimental system consists of 4 pieces of RB-PVT units, 1 HP heat pump unit and 150 L heat storage tank, which is also equipped with various monitoring sensors to explore the system operating characteristics. Then the performance evaluation method of the unit and system is proposed. The experimental investigation on the cogeneration performance of the system in northern China during summer is carried out simultaneously, in terms of the thermal efficiency, electrical efficiency, thermal-based overall efficiency of the unit and heating COP of the system. The operating characteristics monitoring results show that the system works in a long-term stable condition during the daytime with considerable cogeneration performance. The detailed performance parameters have been given in this paper. This study demonstrates that the RB-PVTHP system has the large-scale practically feasible application value in northern China.