###### Abstract  
Renewable energy exploitation in the building sector can lead to significant energy savings and carbon dioxide emission avoidance. The objective of this study is the detailed investigation of a biomass-driven absorption heat pump for heating and cooling. The heat pump is practically a single-effect absorption chiller operating with the Lithium-bromide/water solution and it has been properly modified for heating production during the winter. This system is a novel one and its combination with a biomass boiler was examined for the first time, especially for covering both heating and cooling needs. For the present study, a typical building in Athens, Greece, with a 400 m\({}^{2}\) floor area is selected to be coupled with the suggested heating/cooling configuration. The analysis was conducted by using TRNSYS software for the estimation of the building's thermal loads and with the Engineering Equation Solver for determining the heat pump behavior. According to the results, the yearly biomass consumption is found to be 3.76 tons covering a heating demand of 9136 kWh and cooling demand of 8168 kWh. The seasonal energy cooling performance was found to be 0.751, while the seasonal energy heating performance was at 1.307. Moreover, the proposed configuration was found to have economic and environmental benefits compared to conventional units with an oil boiler and heat pump for cooling. Specifically, the present system leads to 10.8% lower operational costs and 4.8% lower primary energy demand, while there are significant amounts of CO\({}_{2}\) avoidance. biomass; heating; cooling; thermal loads; renewable energy; absorption heat pump +
Footnote †: journal:  
solar coverage at 63.3% and system exergy efficiency at 16.2%. [PERSON] et al. [10] studied a solar/biomass-fed trigeneration system for heating, cooling, and power production. Thermal photovoltaics, a biomass boiler, power blocks for electricity, heat exchangers for heating, and an absorption chiller for cooling production, are incorporated into the cycle. The system exergy efficiency was found close to 34%. [PERSON] et al. [11] examined a solar/biomass multigeneration unit for electricity, cooling, and heating production at two temperature levels. They coupled an organic Rankine cycle with a compression heat pump and they found the system exergy efficiency to be 21.8%. [PERSON] et al. [12] studied a solar/biomass polygeneration system based on the use of a supercritical CO\({}_{2}\) cycle. They found that the total energy efficiency of the system reaches up to 164%, something that is justified by the partial operation of the system as a heat pump. [PERSON] and [PERSON] [13] studied a biomass-based polygeneration system based on a novel CO\({}_{2}\) supercritical cycle. They calculated the system's energy efficiency at 78.1% and the respective exergy efficiency at 26.3%. [PERSON] and [PERSON] [14] studied a biomass/geothermal polygeneration unit for power, heating, cooling, and hydrogen production. The energetic efficiency was found to be 79.5%, while the respective exergetic was at 17.9%. [PERSON] et al. [15] studied a biomass/geothermal heating configuration from a financial point of view. They highlighted the need for a detailed economic analysis, as well as the need for using a storage device for storing heat when both heat sources provide heat in the system. Moreover, it is important to highlight the advantage of thermal renewable energies (e.g., biomass, solar energy, geothermal energy) due to the ability for thermal storage which leads to grid flexibility solution. Advanced techniques have been developed aiming to store thermal energy in a compact and efficient way. The use of phase change materials (PCM) is an important technology that can lead to a significant performance in the case combination with other devices. There are examples that combine PCM with storage tanks [16], finned storage packed tubes [17], heat exchangers [18], batteries [19], etc.