The high-temperature heat pump, as a low-carbonization technology, has broad application prospects in replacing boiler heating, reducing carbon dioxide emissions, and improving the energy utilization efficiency. In this paper, the working fluid, cycle process, key equipment (compressor), and application scenarios of high-temperature heat pumps are introduced in detail. Firstly, the research direction of the working fluid is introduced and the existing working fluid substitution is analyzed and summarized. Then, the characteristics of different heat pump cycles such as compression, absorption, and hybrid heat pumps are introduced. In the aspect of key equipment, the application range and research status of different types of compressors are emphatically introduced. Finally, the application scenario of high-temperature heat pumps is prospected. In addition to the application of industrial heating, it is often used for heat storage to improve the regulatory characteristics of the system. The new heat pump electricity storage system has great application potential in the field of renewable energy consumption. Based on the above analysis of high-temperature heat pumps, four development prospects are put forward: low-Global-Warming-Potential (GWP) working fluid; cycles of temperature lift greater than 80 °C; a compressor with better high-temperature performance; and circulation characteristics of heat pump electricity storage.

Utilization of high-temperature energy in industrial production processes is often exhausted by huge low-temperature waste heat without recovery. Thus, energy efficiency is quite limited. Heat pumps are widely used as a high-efficiency waste heat recovery system and are divided into vapor compression cycle, driven by electricity, and absorption type, driven by steam or hot water. However, compression heat pumps are quite difficult to reach more than 100 °C due to the temperature and compression limits of compressors and the working medium. Meanwhile, the COP (coefficient of performance) of an absorption heat pump is quite low due to the thermodynamic cycle characteristics. In order to increase the outlet temperature and COP significantly, a new type of compression-absorption hybrid heat pump cycle is presented and simulated. Compared with traditional cycles, this heat pump can reach the heat sink temperature of 200 °C with a highly satisfactory COP. This heat pump could reach the optimal COP of 3.249 when the pressure ratio of the compressor is 6.5, the coupling temperature of the low-pressure stage is 55 °C and the coupling temperature of the high-pressure stage is 73 °C. Exergy analysis shows that evaporators and condensers show better efficiency. This heat pump could be promising in different kinds of heat recovery.

A large amount of the waste heat generated during industrial production is not used, which leads to a low energy utilization rate. The recovery of industrial waste heat using heat pumps has the advantages of low energy consumption, high efficiency, safety, and environmental protection. Industrial waste heat has a wide temperature distribution range. Traditional absorption and compression heat pumps can only work in a narrow temperature range due to the thermodynamic cycle, the thermal properties of the working medium, the temperature and pressure resistance of the compressor, and other factors; they cannot simultaneously meet the requirements of a “high heating temperature” and “wide temperature-range heat transfer”. To solve the above problems, this paper proposes a high-temperature heat pump unit based on a coupled cycle of absorption and compression, which can recover low-temperature steam and 50 °C waste heat and produce hot water at 110–130 °C. EES software is used for the mathematical modeling and simulation analysis of the heat pump unit. The results show that, when the driving steam temperature is 140 °C and the waste heat temperature is 50 °C, the heating temperature can reach 110~130 °C and the COP of the system can reach 4.22. Increasing the waste heat outlet temperature and the condensation temperature of the absorption cycle strengthens the COP of the coupled cycle; meanwhile, increasing the evaporation temperature and heating temperature of the absorption cycle reduces the COP of the coupled cycle. The results of this study significantly broaden the operating temperature range and heating temperature of electric heat pumps; our findings therefore have essential research significance for improving energy efficiency in industrial fields.

An efficient integrated energy system (IES) can enhance the potential of building energy conservation and carbon mitigation. However, imbalances between user-side demand and supply side output present formidable challenges to the operational dispatch of building energy systems. To mitigate heat rejection and improve dispatch optimization, an integrated building energy system incorporating waste heat recovery via an absorption heat pump based on the flow temperature model is adopted. A comprehensive analysis was conducted to investigate the correlation among heat pump operational strategies, thermal comfort, and the dynamic thermal storage capacity of piping network systems. The optimization calculations and comparative analyses were conducted across five cases on typical season days via the CPLEX solver with MATLAB R2018a. The simulation results indicate that the operational modes of absorption heat pump reduced the costs by 4.4–8.5%, while the absorption rate of waste heat increased from 37.02% to 51.46%. Additionally, the utilization ratio of battery and thermal storage units decreased by up to 69.82% at most after considering the pipeline thermal inertia and thermal comfort, thus increasing the system’s energy-saving ability and reducing the pressure of energy storage equipment, ultimately increasing the scheduling flexibility of the integrated building energy system.