This presentation will provide an overview of existing large scale heat pumps functioning as central plants for district heating and /or cooling systems. Examples will be drawn from systems in operation in various parts of the world. Additionally, some of the inherent advantages to large central station heat pump approaches will be discussed.

List of topics to be covered:

– Explain how most district cooling systems would fit within the description of this webinars title, i.e., a chiller plant is really just a heat pump central plant. Give examples of the scale of district cooling systems and the extent of their deployment.

– Sewage source systems: Denmark; Canada, Norway, etc.

– Sea water source systems: Sweden, etc. also note that sea water is used for heat rejection in DC plants.

– Lake water: Cornell, Toronto.

– Advantages of large central station approaches:

– Able to deal with difficult fluids such as untreated sea water, sewage, or TSE.

– Thermal storage possible, also can be combined with wind or solar PV power to create thermal energy for storage, which is much less expensive to store than electric energy.

– Large scale solar collection at low temperatures.

– Seasonal storage more feasible at large scale and low temperatures.