In the enthalpy difference lab with a solar simulator, the performance of the indirect expansion solarassisted multi-functional heat pump (IX-SAMHP) can be tested in stable external environment quantificationally. In this paper, the performances of the IX-SAMHP working in the solar water heating mode and solar space heating mode were compared under different conditions. The experimental results indicate that the evaporating heat exchange rate and condensing heat exchange rate were synthetically effected by the evaporating and condensing temperature in the solar water heating mode. Moreover, compared with the situation without irradiation, when the irradiation was 500 W/m(2), the evaporating heat exchange rate and condensing heat exchange rate increased by 37.4% and 32.3%, respectively. In the solar space heating mode, when the irradiation increased from 0 W/m(2) to 500 W/m(2), the heating capacity increased by 20.4%. In the second-law analysis, the calculating results demonstrate that the exergy efficiency of the IX-SAMHP would be enhanced by inputting solar energy to the evaporator. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.