Globally, there is growing concern about energy consumption and its diverse effects on the environment. In South Africa, the current status quo is unfavourable in the domain of energy, hence the Department of Energy, Eskom and NERSA have embarked on supporting energy efficiency technologies nationwide as a strategic goal in reducing demand on the national grid. Due to the non conservative consumption of electricity from the grid and the insufficient supply to meet its demand, the importation of crude oil is very certain. In addition, the current and most popular technology for pool water heating in the said country is the resistive element which is inefficient and non-cost-effective. The energy consumption of residential swimming pool water heating is very massive, and tariff structure shows a constant rise. Furthermore, there's a current electricity crisis during the Eskom evening peak. Hence, a reliable, efficient, cost-effective and renewable energy technology such as an air source heat pump is required as a retrofit to the existing resistive element. Furthermore, mathematical modelling is a tool that can be used to mimic the dynamic behaviour of a physical or process system. It is a computational language or mathematical equation used to predict the dynamic behaviour of physical systems [Tangwe et al., 2015]. Various methods such as numerical methods have been considered as the particular types of mathematical modelling which have been employed to predict the performance of swimming pool ASHP water heater. However, they were unreliable and expensive. Consequently, this research focused on the experimental determination of the viability and development of a mathematical model to predict the performance of swimming pool ASHP water heater. The benefit of the development and building of this model was attributed to its low cost and credibility to forecast the performance of swimming pool ASHP water heater. Also, this robust mathematical model can be used by an energy service company and system manufacturer to compute the dynamic coefficient of performance of the swimming pool ASHP water heater. Following the above-mentioned information, the research sought to provide a permanent solution to the Eskom evening peak constraint. This is because energy-efficiency, serves as the bridging block between conventional and renewable energy sources needed by Eskom in a bid to provide a balance energy mix and sustainable energy. The implementation of a swimming pool ASHP water heater guaranteed a conducive environment for the population due to the reduction in environmental pollution.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufh/vital:28532 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Mqayi, Singatha |
| Publisher | University of Fort Hare, Faculty of Science & Agriculture |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MSc |
| Format | 67 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | University of Fort Hare |
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