Results of EU Project Ground-Med concerning Advanced Ground Source Heat Pump Systems for Heating and Cooling

Abstract

The Ground-Med project “Advanced ground source heat pump systems for heating and cooling in Mediterranean climate” concerned the development, demonstration and monitoring of prototype ground source heat pump (GSHP) systems in eight buildings of South Europe. The main objectives were to develop a new generation of ground source heat pump systems with maximum possible measured seasonal performance factors and demonstrate them during heating and cooling operation in 8 buildings of South Europe. The project was implemented by a consortium of 24 European organisations, including the European heat pump manufacturers CIAT, HIREF and OCHSNER WP, and coordinated by the Centre for Renewable Energy Sources and Saving (CRES). It started on 1 January 2009 and ended on 31 December 2014. It had a budget of approximately 7.24 million euro, 4.3 million of which was provided by the EU, through the FP7 program. More information about the Ground-Med project, including GSHP applications and news, is provided at the project internet site, at the web address: http://www.groundmed.eu/. The project developed 8 new heat pump prototypes incorporating advanced solutions for extraordinary energy efficiency, advanced low temperature fan-coil unit prototypes of extremely low electricity consumption, an air-handling unit prototype utilizing condensing heat, thermal storage equipment, advanced control algorithms, as well as local data acquisition systems and centralized data management system for effective monitoring. Monitoring results demonstrated SPF values above 5 in both heating and cooling modes, values well above the default value of 3.5 for GSHP systems considered as the EU average by the European Commission (2013).