Geothermal Is the Best Choice of Cleaning Energy for Winter District Heating

Abstract

The Chairman of the Communist Party of China and the People’s Republic of China XI Jinping emphasized that carries forward cleaning winter district heating in northern China, e.g. as far as possible to use clean energy. How to put it into effect? The cleaning energy should have a selection principle: energy technology feasibility, energy economy feasibility and energy source sustainable supply. Selectable cleaning energies could involve natural gas, solar energy, electric heating, thermal storage electric space heating, air source heat pump (ASHP), ground source heat pump (GSHP) and geothermal space heat. In this paper each of energy was compared with the selection principle. Then the results showed their advantage and disadvantage respectively. Thus we can know that the natural gas still has a certain pollution, its price is high and sometimes its demand exceeds supply. The technique for solar energy space heating is not so mature, especially for high buildings. There is low efficiency for electric heating. The thermal storage electric space heating is better than electric heat, but its efficiency is still lower. Air source heat pump has an equipment COP (coefficient of performance) about 2, but its system COP is just about 1.5. However ground source heat pump has a highest COP. It is usual the system COP could be 3.5. Therefore it is better for energy saving and CO2 reduction. It used shallow geothermal energy is suitable for anyone and anywhere. Myriad examples and applications have explained the facts in the world. Finally, if there is geothermal resource somewhere then the geothermal district heating is most suitable choice. A single geothermal well with medium-low temperature could solve district heating for 50-100 103 m2 even 200 103 m2 in northern China. However, although Beijing municipality has “2013-2017 Action Plan for Clean Air”, but its implement result in Beijing rural areas is not so satisfied so far. The 12% of natural gas and 67% of air source heat pump should not be proper choice, because there is only 1% of ground source heat pump and none of geothermal district heating. Policy implementation should not be kicked in the teeth. We need effort to improve future implementation and results.