For indoor swimming pools, a lot of energy is needed to control the indoor temperature, relative humidity and pool water temperature. Meanwhile, the indoor air contains a high specific enthalpy due to water evaporation. A new heat pump dehumidifier is studied to reduce energy consumption. The most significant feature of this system is that it can not only recover the latent heat from indoor moist air, but also absorb heat from outdoor air to heat the indoor air and pool water. First, indoor environmental conditions, including space parameters and pool temperature, are analyzed based on human thermal comfort and energy saving. Subsequently, the models of heat and moisture gain are built. After that, the construction and operating modes of the heat pump dehumidifier are described, and the system model is established based on polynomial equations model. In a case study, an indoor swimming pool with a heat pump dehumidifier in Shanghai is studied. When outdoor air specific enthalpy is higher than 18.6 kJ/kg, the requirement of pool water heating can be met only by the heat pump dehumidifier, thus, auxiliary pool heater will not to be put into use. At last, economic analysis between the heat pump dehumidifier and conventional dehumidifier is conducted. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.