Researchers in Jordan have designed a solar-assisted heat pump system to heat a swimming pool in a hotel in the coastal city of Aqaba.They found that the payback period for the system was only 1.94 years, and the total profit after ten years of operation could be around $1.88 million.
A team of scientists from Jordan’s Muttah University and the Amman-based company Golden Energy evaluated the energy and economic performance of a photovoltaic heat pump system used to heat swimming pools in a hotel building in the coastal city of Aqaba.
Their simulations put the hotel’s average annual electricity consumption at about 6.5MWh, with a total annual electricity bill of 591,000 Jordanian dinars ($834,000).They assumed that a 408.2kW photovoltaic system was deployed on the hotel roof with a 5-degree inclination angle.The PV system cost is estimated at JOD244,920 or JOD600 ($846.20) per kW installed.The total cost of the solar heat pump system is JD 360,920.
The hotel has a family swimming pool with an area of ​​310 square meters; a main pool with an area of ​​515 square meters; and a spa pool with an area of ​​380 square meters.From October to March, a lot of heat is needed to keep the indoor and outdoor pools warm.Use a heat transfer model to estimate the performance of a swimming pool heating system.
The model takes into account evaporative and convective heat losses as well as conduction, radiation, and make-up heat losses.”The ability of a swimming pool to dissipate or absorb heat depends entirely on its location, environmental conditions, and the time of day or night,” explained the scientists. “The heat transfer balance is also affected by where the pool is installed, whether indoors or outdoors.”
Evaporative heat losses were found to be the most significant of all swimming pools, with the heat generated by the photovoltaic heat pump providing hot water between 35 and 60 degrees Celsius, mainly to recover those losses.In contrast, the impact of other losses is considered minimal.
According to scientists, the electricity provided by the heat pump system can significantly reduce the energy demand for electric heaters in all operating months of the home and main swimming pool.As for the spa, it can also be heated by a steam boiler running on LPG, and the savings are also significant.Annual savings are estimated at JD 26,506 and JD 43,891 for the home pool and main pool, respectively, and JD 17,328 for the spa pool.
“Compared to the proposed PV system, the hotel electricity demand is 6,500 MWh per year, the total cost is JD 591,000, and the annual electricity generation is about 786 MWh. The annual net electricity consumption can be calculated to be 5,714 MWh, the total cost is JD 514,000, which means that the proposed system[s] will save approximately JD 185,850 annually from the total electricity bill,” Jordan Group stressed.“The cash flow value became positive at the end of the second year and remained positive throughout the ten-year assessment period. The reason is that the overall energy production of the system is large and the initial cost is relatively modest.”
The proposed heat pump system was found to have a payback period of just 1.94 years, with a reported total profit of JD 1,338,931 ($1.89 million) after ten years of operation.”A cursory examination of the economics of the solar project concluded that it is economically sound,” the academics concluded.
The system design is described in the paper “Energy Performance and Economic Evaluation of Photovoltaic Heat Pump Systems,” published in Engineering Results.
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