Thermodynamics of integrated energy supply for small-scale production and living condition in rural areas

Combining fresh material drying/cooling and environment regulation of residential buildings, a new integrated energy supply (IES) system based on heat pump is proposed to improve the energy efficiency, comfort of living condition and retention rate of agricultural products in rural areas. To balance supply and demand, the IES system, based on the characteristics of energy utilization in rural areas, is able to operate among four basic modes: Building Heating (BH), Building Cooling (BC), Material Drying (MD), Material Cooling (MC), and two integrated modes: BHMC and BCMD. Under typical working conditions, thermal performances including cooling capacity, heating capacity, compressor input power and coefficient of performance (COP) are compared among different operation modes when refrigerants are R32, R152a, R22 and R1234yf, respectively. It can be found that integrated energy supply system have lower cooling and heating capacity, and higher compressor power, but its COP is also the biggest. Comparison results also show that the time ratio of integrated operation mode (tr) and time ratio of one operation mode (ts) are important factors effecting the entire energy efficiency.