Improving COP
As the formula shows, the COP of a heat pump system can be improved by reducing the temperature gap minus at which the system works. For a heating system this would mean two things: 1) reducing the output temperature to around 30 °C (86 °F) which requires piped floor, wall or ceiling heating, or oversized water to air heaters and 2) increasing the input temperature (e.g. by using an oversized ground source or by access to a solar-assisted thermal bank ). For an air cooler, COP could be improved by using ground water as an input instead of air, and by reducing temperature drop on output side through increasing air flow. For both systems, also increasing the size of pipes and air canals would help to reduce noise and the energy consumption of pumps (and ventilators).
The heat pump itself can be improved by increasing the size of the internal heat exchangers relative to the power of the compressor, and to reduce the system's internal temperature gap over the compressor. This latter measure, however, makes such heat pumps unsuitable to produce output above roughly 40 °C (104 °F) which means that a separate machine is needed for producing hot tap water.
Read more about this topic: Coefficient Of Performance
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