The earth’s surface acts as a huge solar collector, absorbing radiation from the sun. In the UK, the ground maintains a constant temperature of 11-13oC several metres below the surface all the year around.1 Among many other alternative energy resources and new potential technologies, the ground source heat pumps (GSHPs) are receiving increasing interest because of their potential to reduce prim...

For ground-source heat pump (GSHP) installations, it is important to predict the thermal performance and economic feasibility prior to the introduction of the system. Numerical modelling can be used as an analytical method to accurately predict the thermal performance of such system. It is desirable that the modelling to incorporate seasonal variation during long period of operation, which woul...

The design of heated bridge deck anti-icing systems requires assessment of long-term performance under expected future weather conditions. A method of simulating the performance of such a system has been developed. The system studied in this work uses a bridge deck with embedded hydronic tubing and a ground-coupled heat pump system with vertical borehole heat exchangers as a heat source. The mo...

In addition to the labor, energy and water consumption are the two main cost drivers in current greenhouse systems. Consequently, considerable effort is expended to conserve energy and water, and look for alternative energy sources, especially environmentally friendly renewable energy sources and technologies. Greenhouses in hot and arid regions also require large quantities of water for irriga...

An innovative space-conditioning system is proposed and a life-cycle assessment (LCA) is presented. The layout is obtained starting from a ground-source heat pump system (GSHP) and includes upstream thermal storage (TS). A prototype of the system, implemented following this new approach, is currently in use for space heating and cooling of an industrial building. As a result of the TS designed ...

an investigation on the thermal performance of the soil as geothermal heat energy storage medium has been conducted. the thermal characteristics of the soil storage and the heat transfer from a heat exchanger in the soil, surrounding and bottom surface will be discussed. this investigation forms a contribution to a project to realize such storage to be charged from a solar heating system. this ...