Financial and Environmental Analysis of Ground-source Heat Pump Utilization in Residential Sector in Iran

Abstract

A substantial part of global energy demand is the energy used to supply building cooling and heating loads. In order to prevent pollutant emissions caused by the use of fossil fuels in the building sector, renewable energies must be expanded. Among renewables, ground-source heat pumps are useful for supplying both heating and cooling. Iran has a wide range of different climates and recent studies suggested that almost 8.8% of the country has the potential of geothermal energy. This paper investigates different scenarios of supplying the energy demand for cooling and heating in buildings which will be constructed in Iran until 2030. In the first scenario, the required energy would be provided by using electricity which is generated by fossil fuel power plants. Natural gas would supply the building energy in the second scenario and in the last scenario, buildings’ heating and cooling will be supplied by ground-source heat pumps. It is observed that the overall air pollutant emissions for the first, second, and third scenarios are 167, 162 and 132 million tonnes, respectively. According to the calculations, the first scenario is financially the most favourable from the consumer point of view and the second scenario is the best for the government. However, considering all the costs for the country, the third scenario yields the best results. Therefore, if the government support heat pump installation costs by considering subside it is the best option for the future.