Energetic, economical and geographical evaluation of different solar thermally driven heat pump systems for heating and cooling around Europe

The present work shows an approximation method for solar designers to evaluate the feasibility of solar thermal plants in Europe depending on the type of solar collector used, the coordinates where the system is going to be installed and the types of summer and winter demands to be covered classified by the design temperatures needed for the processes. This method evaluates the maximum amount of energy able to be captured from the sun to satisfy the needs of a residential building in terms of Domestic Hot Water (DHW), heating and cooling demands. The final result of the work is a matrix where it is evaluated the combination among: 1. Two different technologies of collectors: Flat Plate and evacuated tube collectors. 2. Two different ways of covering heating demands. Thermal collectors combined with thermal back up and thermal collectors combined with Thermally Driven Heat Pumps(TDHP). 3. Energetic and economical results plotted in maps will permit easy comparisons among the configurations.