| Summary: | Automotive industry is continuously searching for alternative solution to reduce its energy demand of its manufacturing process. Venturing into renewable energy resources such as solar assisted heat pump (SAHP) will further enhance energy performance while minimizing electricity consumption and operating cost of non – SAHP. Based on past studies, solar energy is unstable and unpredictable as solar energy is dependent on the weather to generate energy. Hence, scheduling of the system and optimization is required to ensure better operation of the system. Yet, no optimization model for SAHP had been developed by other researchers. Four models, model A (solar thermal collector supplied energy to heat pump as energy source), model B (solar photovoltaic collector supplied energy to heat pump as energy source), model C (water thermal storage received heat energy from thermal collector and heat pump, independently) and model D (water thermal storage received heat energy from thermal collector as the only heat resource) had been developed and programmed using general algebraic modelling system. After optimizing all four models, it has been revealed that model C resulted in the lowest total annual cost at USD 39, 518. The energy cost obtained is at USD 0.093 / kWh which is still higher than the current actual liquefied petroleum gas cost used in the factory for this case study. Hence, the sensitivity analysis was done on this model by investigating the effect of solar collector area and its efficiency, heat pump efficiency and thermal energy storage efficiency towards the minimization of total cost. As a result, the solar collector area and its efficiency were identified as the most critical parameters for total annual cost with reduction of 38% into USD 24, 500 with lower energy cost managed to be achieved at USD 0.058 / kWh. Hence, this study is significant enough to be considered as a part of the early introduction of this technology with the aim of moving forward to the actual application in the factory by considering more aspects such as the environmental consequences from its application.
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