Reports on three models of water-loop heat pump systems in commercially available building energy analysis programs, which have been thoroughly reviewed and tested against actual building data. The validation consisted of comparisons of predicted and measured energy consumption of the HVAC components on a monthly, daily and hourly basis. States that without model validation the accuracy of the predicted energy use and demand of water-loop heat pump systems cannot be assured and designers would be less likely to specify them in projects. States the study has identified a number of areas where the models could be refined to improve the prediction of performance of water-loop heat pump systems.

KEYWORDS: Heat pumps, models, computer programs, water heat pumps, analysis, energy consumption, buildings, validating, comparing, measuring, calculating, accuracy, performance