ULTRA – NatUraLly inTelligent Reversibile heAt pumps

Challenge

R&D and commercialization activities in the whole heat pump industry have almost completely focused on the performance enhancement of the overall heat pump and their components. Thus, control algorithms is currently not available on the market. To the best of the applicants’ knowledge, the only R&D activities related to the ULTRA project are the Smart CO2 Heat Pump project1, of which Bitzer Electronics A/S is a partner.

Solution

The demonstration of a dedicated control algorithm for ejector-equipped reversible CO2 heat pumps (technology readiness level (TRL) = 4).

Ejectors have been proved to lead CO2 to offer up to above 20 % energy saving in large refrigeration systems compared to traditional solutions. However, the use of ejectors is still limited in reversible heat pumps, resulting in the lack of a dedicated control approach; the demonstration of an energy optimizing algorithm (TRL = 4) to guarantee that reversible CO2 heat pumps operate efficiently all year around; the demonstration of a control algorithm (TRL = 4) to optimize the maintenance schedule and thus further reduce their energy consumption (and thus their GHG emissions).

Espected result/effect

The ULTRA project aims at making Southern Jutland as the centre stage in the fight against global warming by reducing the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of space heating, space cooling and domestic hot water (DHW) applications by above 20 %. This result will be achieved by making reversible CO2 heat pumps “intelligent”, i.e. being capable of performing with very high efficiency all year round thanks to their advanced control system.