Water to Air Reverse
Cycle Heat Pumps are a heat pump system which gives the
opportunity for efficient operation through heat recovery. The water to air
reverse cycle heat pump system is also known as the versatemp system after the
first commercial system produced by Clivet Ltd. The system (below figure) is
comprised of room based reverse cycle heat pumps. These heat pumps have an air
coil which supplies heat or cooling to the room depending on the direction of
refrigerant flow. The other coil is part of a refrigerant to water heat
exchanger. The water flow and return pipes to this heat exchanger connect into
common flow and return pipes which also serve other reverse cycle heat pumps
throughout the building.
Heat pumps operating in cooling mode will
extract heat from the room and deposit it into the water circuit. Other heat pumps
which are in heating mode will take heat from the circuit. In this way the
reject heat say from computer rooms can be recovered and deposited into rooms
requiring heating. If it is required additional heating or cooling can be input
to the water loop using boilers or chillers respectively.
