A ground Source heat pump is one of the very common names if talking about the geothermal energy. It is this equipment which is used to transfer heat from the ground to the specialized areas where the earth’s heat is then transformed to multiple uses like heating up the buildings, conversion to electricity of to pre-heated domestic hot water.
Basically these heat pumps use buried ground loop which is responsible for transferring the heat of the earth to the ground. The quality of this system is that it does not require any external fuel source. It uses this heat to operate itself and resultantly heat up the whole buildings (in cases where the geothermal energy is being used as heating systems for the buildings i.e. geothermal ground source heat pumps). In order to check whether the ground source heat pump is working efficiently, there is a mathematical procedure available. The efficiency is measured by the coefficient of performance, which is basically a ratio of units of heat being extracted to the units of electricity consumed by the compressor and pump for the ground loop. The efficiency of the ground source heat pump varies but on average it is 3 to 4 but there are cases where the pump has produce better rate of efficiency. There is an international ground source heat pump association, which regulates the rule and regulations and technical aspects for building and running such facilities. Heat pump manufacturers are supposed to contact this association in order to undertake ground source heat pump sales and design. Another responsibility of this association is to conduct ground source heat pump reviews and a check on effective and efficient ground source heat pumps for sale by these vendors.
In order to understand the ground source heat pump installation and working, we should first try to figure out the important elements of this pump. The ground source heat pump comprises of 3 main parts; the ground loop, the heat pump and the heat distribution system. The ground loop comprises of a pipe buried in the ground through a borehole or in some case through a horizontal trench. While the pipe is being inserted into the ground it is usually in a closed circuit and is filled with a mixture of water and antifreeze. This mixture is pumped round the pipe and the heat is being absorbed from the ground. The ground loop can also be in a form of spiral, coil or slink which is normally used in trenches.
The next most important part of a ground source heat pump is “the heat pump”. The main purpose of a ground source heat pump manufacturers is to make a heat pump which extract heat from the ground, in a same manner as the heat is extracted from the inside of a refrigerator by the refrigerant. Mainly the heat pump is further divided into three parts.
These are; the evaporator, the compressor and the condenser. The evaporator is used to bring out the heat from water in the ground loop. The purpose of a compressor here is to insulate the refrigerant round the heat pump and compress it to the temperature which is required further by the distribution circuit. The last part inside the heat pump is the condenser. It is here to provide the feed to the distribution system through giving up the heat to hot water tank. This is the reason why at times these pumps are termed as Water source heat pumps. The final phase of a ground source heat pump is the distribution system. It is this phase where the natural resource is finally reached to a phase where it then be used according to the requirements. It consists of radiators which are use for space heating. Also in most of the cases, it has got a water storage area for hot water supply in order to use it further for the building’s heating system. The distribution channel can have radiators or under floor heating, but it is always recommended to have an under floor heating device in use as it requires lower temperature to work efficiently. Ground source heat pumps in greenhouses are a common application being observed these days. People do use these pumps for earning money, by selling excess energy to private firms, thus living with a ground source heat pump is another beneficial aspect for low income individuals.
