Ground Source Heat Pumps for Mediterranean Climate: Present Status and Expectations from the Ground-Med Project

Abstract

Thanks to the European support under the FP7 program, the Ground-Med partners, after three years of project activities, have developed a new generation of energy efficient ground source pump systems, including heat pumps, fan-coil units and air handling units, which have been installed and provide heating and cooling at the eight demonstration buildings of the project, located in South European EU member States. First estimates, based on COP laboratory measurements and monitoring data from project demo sites, indicate that the project objective of SPF>5.0 can be exceeded, even when considering at the calculations the electricity consumption of both the heat pump compressor and the external (BHE) pump. Apart from using energy efficient equipment, key parameters towards achieving maximum SPF, are the BHE and system design, system operating conditions and control methodology used.