Experimental Investigation of the Performance of a Reversibly Used Cooling Tower Heating System Using Heat Pump in Winter

A desuperheater heat recovery system that includes a reversibly used cooling tower (RUCT) was studied by simulation and field tests in subtropical regions in China. This paper presents the field test of a RUCT heating system using heat pump (RUCTHPS) in winter installed in a test office building, which is located in Changsha, Hunan province, a hot summer and cold winter region in China. Instead of using water in summer, aqueous solution was used as circulation medium between the RUCT and the heat pump in this system. Experiments were conducted to study the influence of air mass flow rate, temperature of the inlet air, temperature of the inlet solution, and solution mass flow rate on the performance of the RUCTHPS using heat pump in winter. Based on the field test results it was found that the RUCTHPS can work well when the ambient temperature is near 0°C in the winter. It was also found that the RUCT had big influence on the performance of whole heating system.