Future Optimized Reversible CO2 chiller/heat pump unit

eating and cooling are responsible for approximately 50 % of the EU final energy demand which means that it is crucial to address this challenge in order to accomplish climate neutrality in 2050 on both a national level in Denmark and on a European level. By combining of increased energy efficiency, reuse of waste heat and electrification, this project addresses the important challenge of delivering clean and energy effi-cient heating and cooling for industrial processes and large buildings by combining a chiller (water chilling packages) and a heating system (heat pump) in a single unit.
The developed unit replaces the two systems as it is today, i.e., the equipment used for cooling purposes (chiller) and the equipment used for heating purposes (boiler). This concept gives a superb, combined effi-ciency and a price competitive solution. This is achieved by combining heating and cooling and compensate for mismatch.
The main goal of the project is to develop a novel industrial factory-built reversible chiller and heat pump unit based on CO2 as the environmentally friendly and safe natural refrigerant. The target market is both the air conditioning and industrial processes, areas with a huge potential for energy savings and areas playing a potential key role in the green transition. The phase out of fossil fuels in the area of industrial heating is acknowledged by the European Commission to be a main challenge in the transition of our energy system, and this project is considered to be part of the solution.
Although the energy efficiency of the novel unit is of great importance both in full and part load, it is equally important to ensure the efficiency of the unit throughout its lifetime. Here the cloud solution combined with digital twins and machine learning is developed into a IoT (Internet of Things) to watch over the unit and report if efficiency decline or if the unit needs service.
The development tasks in the project can be divided into the following subcategories:
• Reversible chiller/heat pump cycle including design of high-pressure industrial modulating ejector, expander and compressor.
• Air-cooled fin and tube reversible heat exchanger
• Plate heat exchangers
• Unit control strategy
• IoT (Internet of Things).