Design and Installation of a Direct Exchange Ground Source Heat Pump System

Abstract

Ground source heat pump (GSHP) systems are highly efficient, renewable and clean energy technology systems suitable for heating and cooling of residential and commercial buildings. This poster presented a design and an installation of a geothermal system using direct exchange ground source heat pump (DX-GSHP) for a cooling load of 1 ton (3.5 KW). The direct heat exchange system exchange heat with the ground through R22 refrigerant circulating in copper tubes buried at a depth of 5 m in the earth. The direct heat exchange system works on a vapor compression cycle necessitating the use of refrigerant, compressor and throttling devices. The results show that such a system is 70 to 80% more efficient than the conventional cooling systems. The coefficient of performance for this system was 4.5. The effect of using the soil of different thermal conductivities on efficiency of the system has also been investigated as a part of this research work.