Technical and Economic Feasibility of a District Hybrid Geothermal Heat Pump System in a Cold Climate
- Key words
- Geothermal heat pump; direct use; low enthalpy; heat recovery; feasibility
- Location
- Whitehorse, Canada
- Conference
- Geothermal Resources Council Transactions
- Year
- 2011
- Session
- Geothermal heat pumps; District heating/cooling; Feasibility
- Language
- English
Abstract
A feasibility study of a district hybrid geothermal heat pump system serving a newly planned, sustainable subdivision in a subarctic climate in Northern Canada is presented. The study examines the technical and economic feasibility of constructing the district heating system with a low-temperature fluid supply loop serving distributed geothermal heat pumps in buildings. The heating loads are met by an integrated combination of a ground heat exchanger (mainly acting as a thermal storage device), solar thermal collector arrays, a sewer heat recovery system, and a peaking boiler system. A parametric analysis of 50-year life-cycle cost is used to identify the most feasible options.
Copyright 2011, Geothermal Resources Council. Readers who download papers from this site should honour the copyright of the original authors, and may not copy or distribute the work further without the permission of the original publisher.