Simulated Long-term Thermal Performance of a Building That Utilizes a Heat Pump System and Borehole

• Over the last decades, installation and use of heat pumps has grown rapidly in Sweden, to the extent that these mainly or partly heat roughly 25 % of the heated floor space in single-family houses. A majority are ground coupled where the heat exchanger is a borehole of 60-220 m depth. As the heat pump system operates, heat extraction will in time reduce borehole temperatures, rendering lowered efficiency of the heat pump system thus directly affecting its economical and environmental aspects. Within the building sector, durability and life performance dynamics of energy systems is often not reflected upon. System performance and efficiency is assumed to be static over time, changing only due to different operation scenarios. This paper serves to quantify the long-term thermal performance degradation of a component, in this case the borehole, and how the degradation of this component affects performance-over-time of an entire system, in this case the heating system of the building. A dynamic thermal simulation model is used to assess the long-term thermal performance of the borehole. The building, which the heat pump serves, is assumed to be a typical Swedish house with normal energy consumption. Simulation results show that the depth of the borehole is of great importance to limit over-time temperature drops. The efficiency of the heat pump system is directly dependent of temperatures in the borehole. How the overall system performance is affected by component performance degradation, is highlighted.

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Samhällsbyggnadsteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Civil Engineering (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Energy consumption

service life

heat pump system

borehole

modelling

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)