Martínez-Rodríguez G., Fuentes-Silva A.L., Baltazar J.-C., 2025, Economic Evaluation of a Stage Compression Heat Pump System for Industrial Applications, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 120, 49-54.
A compressor represents 80 % of the cost of a heat pump, and the heat pump represents 70 % of the cost of a coupled system heat pump-solar thermal installation. A single heat pump was designed, another with two-stage compression and a third with three-stage; the heat source is solar thermal energy at 70 °C. A dairy process was selected that consumes 880.45 kW at 95 °C and the working fluids R600a and R1336mzz(E) were used. The solar thermal installation was designed with average environmental conditions of the winter period in Guanajuato city, Mexico. R600a achieved the best results in all configurations. The COP of the heat pump showed an increase of up to 16 % and when operating with two-stage compression, and 18 % with three-stage. The cost of the heat pump with one or two-stage compression was reduced by 35 % when the solar source temperature rose from 40 to 70 °C. The proposed approach contributes to decarbonization with lower energy costs compared to the costs of using fossil fuels.
