Cascading implementation of a magnetocaloric heat pump for building space heating applications

The main objective of the ENOVHEAT project is to develop, build and test the prototype of an innovative and efficient heat pump system based on the active magnetic regenerator technology and to demonstrate that it can be used for building space heating applications. The numerical investigation presented in this article tested different configurations of single magnetocaloric heating systems and cascaded magnetocaloric heating networks.

It has been shown that the magnetocaloric heat pump can provide for the heating need of a single family house under Danish winter weather condition and presents appreciable coefficient of performance. At optimum fluid flow rate, certain magnetocaloric heat pump configurations could generate fluid temperature outlet of up to 35.3 °C and COPs of up to 4.45.

When integrated and operating in a multi-zone dwelling, magnetocaloric heat pump presented average seasonal COPs of up to 1.84 and 2.63 for single unit systems and cascaded magnetocaloric heating networks, respectively. These results are encouraging to continue investigating further the magnetocaloric heat pump technology.