ITER · Improving Thermal Efficiency of horizontal ground heat exchangers

Improving Thermal Efficiency of horizontal ground heat exchangers

The overall aim of ITER is to ensure the sustainability of ground coupled heating-cooling systems and especially the horizontal ground heat exchangers systems. Key challenges are: • to enhance the heat transfer of the ground surrounding the pipes creating thermally enhanced backfilling material (TEBM) suitable for horizontal systems; • to assess the performance and the environmental impacts of new promising technological solutions as helix systems with and without TEBM; • to monitor the results over time through direct measurements and numerical simulation Thermally enhanced material have been studied mainly for grouting of the vertical closed systems, where the effects of silica sand or graphite additives were tested over bentonite and cementitious grout, both in laboratory and in situ case studies. Therefore, focusing the research activities on (i) identifying new TEBM mixtures for horizontal loop, (ii) conceiving new solution for heat exchangers coupled with TEBM and (iii) monitoring the trend in a real in situ case study will lead to a significant advancement in improving the performance of the horizontal systems, with interesting relapses on the practical and economic point of view. The grain size distribution (texture) of unconsolidated material provides very important basic information for the estimation of the very shallow geothermal potential (vSGP). Therefore, research efforts are focused in the range from sand to clay material, in order to analyse the pore size distribution (texture-characteristic water content) and mineral composition (texture-characteristic proportion of quartz) of the quaternary sediments, usually interested by horizontal heat exchangers. Since heating and cooling demands constitute almost 50% of the final energy demand in Europe, the development of geothermal energy systems and especially shallow geothermal solutions, reveals a huge potential in providing thermal energy for residential and tertiary buildings, thanks also to its local availability, manageability and flexibility. Projects and ideas challenging a better performance of shallow geothermal plants as those promoted by ITER are expected to support the European economic growth and technological excellence, boosting competitiveness and job creation, taking into account also the individual and collective well-being of citizens, protecting the environment and, accordingly, the human health.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз