Sixteenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

The Bernardo O’Higgins military base, located in Antarctica, has no access to the Chilean electricity grid and relies exclusively on diesel for power generation. The military base’s daily consumption of more than 647 liters of diesel entails, firstly, an elevated emission rate of harmful pollutants such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and fine particulate matter, and secondly, high energy running costs due to the purchase, transportation, and storage of the diesel fuel. Since most of the military base’s energy demand is for space heating and the production of domestic hot water, implementing heat pump systems could be an effective solution to reduce environmental impacts and energy running costs. The research selected the most suitable heat pump configuration for the production of domestic hot water for the military base´s needs and to analyze the environmental impacts of the refrigerants used in this technology. Room conditions where the heat pump could possibly be installed were measured, and a heat pump simulation was performed to determine the best location and the most optimum refrigerant to be used. Due to the low ambient temperatures at the base, results indicates that the most effective configuration is to place the heat pump evaporator in the food cellar where the indoor temperature is relatively high and constant. A heat pump prototype was installed and subsequently monitored.