What software is possible to make a dynamic simulation to choose the optimal heat pump?
Hello @Alex9 this doesn’t choose the optimal heat pump, but might be part of what you are after: Heat pump control simulator and GitHub - emoncms/dynamic: Dynamic building energy modelling module.
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Alex,
Having spent some time looking for simulation software (end ending up writing some), I have two comments:
- I have some doubts that the aim of choosing an optimal heat pump is achievable. There are too many HP parameters involved* and the actual behaviour of the algorithms in products are not known (and, as far as I can tell, only very loosely reverse engineered by observation).
- All simulations are going to have to make assumptions and simplifications. These should vary according to the aim of the simulation and I would be very cautious about making use of any simulation which is not accompanied by a detailed description of its aims, the model it uses, and the assumptions etc. Otherwise, you will not really know what the results mean.
'* - Even the question of knowing the COP for a given environmental and leaving water temperature is a challenge. Manufacturer data is often limited to a few data points with varying “standard conditions” and the big killer is the effect of humidity on defrost cycles.
I have doubts that the difference between products is any where near as important as the installation and operation factors such as flow temp, flow-return dT, use of the buffer and how well it is balanced, emitter sizing, use of weather compensation, schedule of target temperature.
One area I did look at via simulation was how to optimise the tradeoff between a low flow temperature and always-on vs a higher flow temperture and a schedule for the target temperature. You will come across people advocating the former, and that will give you the best COP, but not necessarily the lowest electricity cost. Even that relatively simple simulation aim has to make quite a few assumptions and in any case leads to “it depends on the weather”… . ONe of the assumptions is the “thermal mass” of the property. This comes up in Trystan’s links and is something which you’d have to find out for your own property by collecting some data.
My approach, as my HP gets some use this winter, is to collect data and to interpret it in the light of various models, with a view to optimising the operational parameters and narrowing down the property parameters such as the thermal mass.
THat is not to say that simulations are unimportant; they can be quite revealing about various facets of the system operation and help you to reason about what is going on in different situations.
Cheers, Adam
You could compare the simulated data with the real word data from https://heatpumpmonitor.org/
There is an API: https://heatpumpmonitor.org/api-helper
Something else which may be worth simulating (or at least thinking about) is the DHW. If you are used to an instant-hot-water gas combi, things are quite different and maybe a change of usage pattern would lead to a cost saving. Simulate, for example the cost of always-on hot water from a large cylinder vs a smaller cylinder and a more organised approach to who has a shower/bath and when… Since the leaving water temp for DHW is likely to be rather higher than the central heating, the COP will be lower too. DHW seems like a prime candidate for cost saving.
For DHW the biggest effects will be at which time you generate hot water (ideally hottest time of day) and secondly how cold you let the temperature in the tank get before recharging (charging offset). Optimizing this will maybe net a 20% efficiency increase compared to the default vendor provided settings. The key here is having a tank that’s large enough to give you the freedom of recharging it at the ideal time. I guess this optimization will save me 100-200 kWh electrical energy per year, so maybe around 50€/year.
It seems like this might be useful for you, for modeling: Numerous
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Hello @Andrii apologies for deleting your previous post, I was too quick to think is was
spam/advertisement, please feel free to create another topic/thread with details of the software you have been working on.
Thank you, @TrystanLea, everything is fine, no need to worry. I will gladly create it on this wonderful forum a bit later.
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