Site approval test of heat pump drying: Design, installation, and test run with of demonstration unit

Abstract

The objective of the SusOrgPlus project is to prototype and validate the concept of heat pump drying at TRL 6 in close cooperation with the supply industry. The demonstration unit shall be used to maximise energy efficiency and simultaneously increase the product quality. This report documents the activities towards the building and installation of the demonstration unit as well as the site approval tests. The system consists of an industrial convective drying unit (supplier Innotech GmbH, Germany), a heat pump with R744 as working media including 2 thermal storage tanks (supplier Cadio AS, Norway) and a Data Acquisition System (supplied by SINTEF). The dryer was installed in the HighEFFlab of SINTEF in July 2019 and the heat pump integrated in the following month. Final site acceptance tests were done in November 2019 and concluded the Task 2.2 of the SusOrgPlus project. The installation was financed by the Infrastructure project HighEFFlab and will be available for R&D until 2028.