Heating a Plateau School for 191 Days: The Nangqian Heat-Pump Project

The Nangqian project is a useful cold-climate reference because the source gives both the operating season and the equipment scope. The school is in Qinghai’s Yushu region, where the public page describes an average temperature near 3 C, a minimum reaching -27 C and about 191 heating days a year.

Published heating scope

The source states that 35 fixed-frequency commercial heat pumps rated at 50 HP were used to heat roughly 50,000 square meters. The previous system used coal, required manual operation in winter and was described by the source as having a significant environmental impact.

The project page says the new installation supports remote intelligent operation. It does not publish the indoor design temperature, building envelope values, circulation temperatures, defrost settings or hydraulic balancing results. Those inputs are essential before transferring the configuration to another plateau site.

Source-reported running-cost comparison

The public record states that running costs were about 37% lower than coal heating. That number is project-page information, not a normalized comparison. Fuel price, maintenance cost, electricity tariff and weather normalization are not shown, so the figure should be used as a published claim rather than a general design target.

The practical takeaway is to treat the heating season as an operating condition, not a marketing number. Long cold periods affect defrost cycles, standby capacity, pipe protection and the labour needed to keep the system running.