Heat pump for space heating - uses high thermal capacity building walls to prevent icing of heat exchangers

摘要

The building external wall has an outer leaf of high thermal capacity and a structural inner leaf also of high thermal capacity. The space between them is filled with insulation. The refrigerant circuit of a heat pump runs through a plate heat exchanger between the insulation and the inside of the outer leaf. This forms an evaporator which takes heat from the cold outer leaf but is not exposed to the atmosphere and therefore does not ice up. A heat pump transfers the heat absorbed in this way to a heating medium which flows through a similar heat exchanger between the insulation and the outside of the inner leaf of the wall to give up heat when cooling is required.