Seawater heat pump (SWHP) systems are considered as an ideal approach to heat and cool buildings in coastal areas due to its attractive advantages of high efficiency, low carbon emission and using renewable energy instead of electricity for heating and cooling. A great many of SWHP systems have been applied in residential and commercial buildings successfully. In this paper, models describing the coupled seepage and heat transfer process of beach well infiltration intake systems for a SWHP were established and validated by field experiment. In addition, the performance of the beach well infiltration intake system was simulated. And effect of the parameters related to the beach well and the operation of the system on pumping water temperature was explored through a series of simulations. As a result, application of SWHP systems with beach well infiltration intake system in coastal areas in China is feasible due to the favorable geographical conditions and environment. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.