EXERGY ANALYSIS OF SOLAR PHOTO VOLTAIC THERMAL HYBRID HEAT PUMP WORKING WITH CIRCULAR AND TRIANGULAR EVAPORATOR TUBE CONFIGURATIONS

Abstract

In order to evaluate the performance of a solar photovoltaic thermal hybrid heat pump working with circular and triangular tube evaporator configurations, exergy analysis is performed in this study. The experiments were carried out under the meteorological conditions of Coimbatore city (latitude of 10.98oN and longitude of 76.96oE) in India. Exergy destruction and exergy efficiency of each components of the system were calculated with reference to four ambient conditions such as solar intensity, ambient temperature, ambient relative humidity and ambient wind velocity. The exergy performance parameters of the heat pump were simulated using artificial neural networks to have accurate exergy performance comparison. The results indicated that maximum exergy destruction for both the configurations occurred in PV-T evaporator. The exergy destruction in circular tube configuration is 2-7% higher than triangular tube configuration. It was also found out that exergy efficiency of the system using triangular tube configuration is 1.2-3.8% higher than circular tube configuration.