Technical evaluation of a stand-alone PV heat pump system for space heating/ cooling applications without batteries

In the last years, the concept of solar photovoltaic (PV) powered heat pumps (HP) has become very attractive, in order to match the increasing heating/cooling demand with a renewable and environmentally-friendly energy source. The objective of this work is to technically validate a stand-alone PV-HP system for space heating/cooling applications. This paper describes the prototype system installed in Madrid (Spain) for this purpose, together with the definition of the validation tests to be performed. Finally, some modifications are proposed for the performance indicators that are traditionally used for comparing HP and PV systems, in order to achieve a characterization that is more specific to PV-powered systems.