Geothermal Heat Pumps

Marisca Oana Teodora

Fizica 11B
 What is a heat pump?
 a machine that moves heat from a location to
another location, using mechanical work

 What are the major parts of
a heat pump?
 Compressor: This increases the pressure of the
refrigerant so that it will accept the maximum
amount of heat from the air.
 Condenser: Coils that move heat to or from the
outside air.
 Evaporator: Coils that move heat to or from the air
inside the home.
 Air handler: Fan that blows the air into the ducts of
the home. Components 1, 2, 3 and 4 are found in
all standard air conditioners.
 Reversing valve:Changes the heat pump from air
conditioning to heating, and vice versa. This is not
part of the thermostat.
 What is a geothermal heat
pump?
a heat pump which extracts heat from ground
or water.

 The engineering and scientific communities
prefer the terms "geoexchange" or "ground
source heat pumps" because geothermal
power traditionally refers to heat originating
from deep in the earth's mantle. Ground
source heat pumps harvest a combination
of geothermal power and heat from the sun
when heating, but work against these heat
sources when used for air conditioning.
 How does it work?
 An antifreeze solution is circulated through
plastic pipes buried beneath the ground for
closed loop systems. The fluid gathers heat
from the earth and circulates it through the
system and into the building. During the
summer, the system reverses itself and
pulls heat from the structure and places it
in the ground. This process creates free hot
water in the summer and produces a
considerable savings on hot water in the
winter.
  The COP for a heat pump in a heating or cooling
application, with steady-state operation, is:


 where
 ΔQcool is the amount of heat extracted from a cold
reservoir at temperature Tcool ,
 ΔQhot is the amount of heat delivered to a hot
reservoir at temperature Thot ,
 ΔA is the compressor's dissipated work.
 All temperatures are in absolute units
 Heat pumps are always more efficient at
heating than pure electric heaters, even
when extracting heat from cold winter air.
But unlike an air-source heat pump, which
transfers heat to or from the outside air, a
ground source heat pump exchanges heat
with the ground. This is much more energy-
efficient because underground
temperatures are more stable than air
temperatures through the year. Seasonal
variations drop off with depth and
disappear below seven meters due to
thermal inertia.
 Ground source heat pumps, which are also confusingly
referred to as Geothermal heat pumps, typically have
higher efficiencies than air-source heat pumps. This is
because they draw heat from the ground or
groundwater which is at a relatively constant
temperature all year round below a depth of about
eight feet (2.5 m). This means that the temperature
differential is lower, leading to higher efficiency.
Ground-source heat pumps typically have COPs of
3.5-4.0 at the beginning of the heating season, with
lower COPs as heat is drawn from the ground. The
tradeoff for this improved performance is that a
ground-source heat pump is more expensive to install
due to the need for the digging of wells or trenches in
which to place the pipes that carry the heat exchange
fluid. When compared versus each other, groundwater
heat pumps are generally more efficient than heat
pumps using heat from the soil.
 How many types of
geothermal heat pumps
exist?
 geothermal heat pump (extracts heat from
the ground or similar sources)
› geothermal–air heat pump (transfers heat
to inside air)
› geothermal–water heat pump (transfers
heat to a tank of water);
 Closed-loopsystem-horizontal, vertical and
lake/pond;
 Open-loop system
 Is it effective?

 The setup costs are higher than for conventional

systems, but the difference is usually returned
in energy savings in 3 to 10 years. System life
is estimated at 25 years for inside
components and 50+ years for the ground
loop. As of 2004, there are over a million units
installed worldwide providing 12 GW of
thermal capacity, with an annual growth rate
of 10%.If deployed on a large scale, this
technology may help alleviate energy costs
and global warming.
 Two geothermal heat pumps used at the
College of Southern Idaho.
