Investigating control strategies for a domestic low-temperature heat pump heating system

Despite energy conservation regulations and efforts for improving HVAC operations, numerous domestic buildings do not perform energy efficiently and many times the indoor environment is far away from specified comfort levels. Especially in houses served from low-temperature heating systems the low ability of the heating system to respond to fast changing thermal loads is common. In such cases, the implementation of new, sophisticated controls is an important issue. In this study, we use a reference model of a domestic low temperature heat pump heating system developed in TRNSYS–EES and analyse its operation. Several methods of control strategies have been applied for specified time periods in order to keep the comfort within reasonable ranges. Prognostic climatic control and increased ventilation rates when required are some of these methods. The results depict the influence of the control method on the indoor temperature and the comfort indexes of PMV and PPD. The highest indoor temperature difference for a chosen day reaches 4 °C when there is no shading and when there is internal shading with the option of applying prognostic climatic control. Generally, the findings highlight the importance of dynamics in controlling functions and the difficulty of incorporating in models unpredictable factors as the solar radiation.