Abstract
Air source heat pump coupled with PV panels is a promising solution for hydronic heating systems in high performance buildings. However, the configura-tion and operation of these systems must be properly designed considering the specific needs of high per-formance buildings. In the literature, several works dealt with the optimal coupling of HVAC systems in buildings but there is no agreement on the choice of the cost functions in the optimization problems. This study presents an analysis on the extent to which the choice of the optimization objectives affects the design of a hydronic heating system in four reference buildings.