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Heat pumps provide an efficient heating method; however they suffer from sever capacity and performance degradation at low ambient conditions. This has deterred market penetration in cold climates. There is a continuing effort to find an efficient air source cold climate heat pump that maintains acceptable capacity and performance at low ambient conditions. Systematic optimization techniques provide a reliable approach for the design of such systems. This paper presents a step-bystep approach for the design optimization of cold climate heat pumps. We first start by describing the optimization problem: objective function, constraints, and design space. Then we illustrate how to perform this design optimization using an open source publicly available optimization toolbox. The response of the heat pump design was evaluated using a validated component based vapor compression model. This model was treated as a black box model within the optimization framework. Optimum designs for different system configurations are presented. These optimum results were further analyzed to understand the performance tradeoff and selection criteria. The paper ends with a discussion on the use of systematic optimization for the cold climate heat pump design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the laboratory performance of five integrated Heat Pump Water Heaters (HPWHs) across a wide range of operating conditions representative of US climate regions. Laboratory results demonstrate the efficiency of this technology under most of the conditions tested and show that differences in control schemes and design features impact the performance of the individual units. These results were used to understand current model limitations, and then to bracket the energy savings potential for HPWH technology in various US climate regions. Simulation results show that HPWHs are expected to provide significant energy savings in many climate zones when compared to other types of water heaters (up to 64%, including impact on HVAC systems). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]