Ground-source heat pumps systems (GSHP) are commonly used all over Sweden to supply heat and sometimes cool to different kinds of housings or commercial facilities. Many large installations are by now between 10 and 20 years old. Even when the design of such system has been tackled, rare are the studies that have dealt with following their performance throughout time in detail. Based on conductive heat transfer, the heat extraction process makes the ground temperature decrease when installations are only used for heating. This thesis aims at proposing a method to evaluate how the temperature in a borehole heat exchanger of a GSHP will evolve. The project is focusing on the heat transfer from the ground to the boreholes modelled using Finite Line Source (FLS) based generated g-functions. “g-functions” are non-dimensional parameters characterizing the evolution of the ground thermal resistance enduring variable heat extraction loads. A model using Matlab has been developed and validated against relevant publications. As a case study, the method is applied to an existing 15 years old GSHP installation, composed of 26 boreholes and 3 heat pumps, so as to compare the obtained results with data measured on site. Two sub-borehole fields compose this installation: 14 of them were drilled in 1998 and the remaining 12 in 2009. Measured variable heat extraction loads were superposed using dedicated site g-functions for the two boreholes fields. As a result, a comparison between modelled and calculated heat carrier fluid in the boreholes over the last 6 months is presented here, as well as a 20 years forecast of the ground temperature at the interface with the boreholes.

In 2010, the Ground Source Heat Pumps (GSHPs) market in the European Union went up over one million (1 014 436 units at the end of 2010 according to EUROBSERV’ER 2011). In 2011, it was estimated around 1.25 million according to Bayer et al. (2012). With more than 378 000 units installed in 2010, according to the Swedish heat pump association (SVEP), the Swedish GSHPs market was the first in the EU. As for the French GSHPs market, it was estimated to 151 938 units in service in 2010, which propelled France at the third rank in the EU. However, despite a relatively important number of GSHPs installed in the whole EU, since 2008 GSHP sales have shrank. Even Sweden which has been the most competitive country sees its GSHP sales decline in the first quarter of 2012 (EUROBSERV’ER 2011). This report is the achievement of my Master of Science Thesis project. It also represents the end of my studies at INSA Lyon in France and concludes my degree in Energetic and Environment Engineering. This report deals with the improvement of a heat injection apparatus which is available at KTH (Royal Institute of Technology). This equipment is better known as Thermal Response Test (TRT) apparatus. This kind of equipment improves Borehole Heat Exchangers (BHE) design in terms of size and cost benefits. This technology is generally used to design GSHP installations in both domestic and industrial purposes. It allows to determine really important thermal BHE parameters: the thermal conductivity of the ground and the borehole thermal resistance. The report covers a theoretical description of TRT experiments, the reasons and objectives of such a project, the apparatus design and its construction. The last part is dedicated to a first experimental laboratory results and some problems met during the project course.

This thesis investigates the validity of the standard thermal response test (TRT) results when performed on a series of boreholes (string). The typical TRT consists of subjecting a single borehole to a constant heat injection rate to obtain the temperature response in the ground which can then be used to determine the ground thermal conductivity. When completed on a single borehole, the results may be analyzed with the line source theory, since the assumption of a single line heat source is valid. For multiple boreholes, the assumption of a single line source becomes invalid if the spacing between the boreholes is small enough for borehole thermal interaction to occur. Moreover, for boreholes that are charged in series, heat transfer from the horizontal pipes that connect the vertical boreholes may also influence the ground thermal response. This thesis takes an in-depth look at the different factors that affect the results of TRTs performed on borehole strings. Different analysis methods are implemented to determine areas of improvement for determining the thermal conductivity of the soil surrounding the borehole string. For the analysis, the infinite line source (ILS) model and a model developed using TRNSYS 18 were used to determine the effective thermal conductivity. The results show that TRNSYS is unable to accurately model a TRT performed on a borehole string. The horizontal pipe model within TRNSYS proved to have significant fundamental issues, as the effective thermal conductivity is greatly underestimated with values of 1.2±0.1W/mK and the results of increasing the horizontal length both increased and decreased the effective thermal conductivities. The results from the ILS demonstrate that an effective thermal conductivity of 1.7±0.2W/mK is an appropriate estimate of the soil at the BTES field tested, as the borehole string with the furthest spacing between boreholes gave an effective thermal conductivity of 1.7W/mK. Performing multiple thermal response tests within the same BTES field also provided evidence of the need to implement multiple TRTs as common practise. The testing presented shows that the effective thermal conductivity can vary within ±0.2W/mK within the same relative location. With better knowledge of the thermal properties within the BTES field location comes the opportunity for improved planning of operation and control of thermal distribution within the field. This would be especially beneficial when dealing with seasonal BTES fields / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

A model has been developed which simulates a system consisting of a horizontal and vertical ground-coupled heat exchanger connected in parallel to the same heat pump. The model was used in computer simulations to investigate how the annual minimum and mean fluid temperatures at the heat pump varied as several parameters of the combined system were changed. A comparison was also made between different control settings for fluid flow rate distribution between the two exchangers. For the case when the flow rate distribution was not controlled, the effect of viscosity differences between a colder and warmer exchanger was investigated. The short term effects of letting the vertical heat source rest during the warm summer months was then tested. Lastly, the results of the model was compared to a simple 'rule of thumb' that have been used in the industry for this kind of combined system. The results show that using a combined system might not always result in increased performance, if the previously existing exchanger is a vertical ground-coupled heat exchanger. The effects of viscosity differences on the flow distribution seems to be negligible, especially for high net flows. Controlling the fluid flow rates seems to only be worth the effort if the the pipe lengths of the two combined exchangers differ heavily. Letting the vertical ground-coupled heat exchanger rest during summer was shown to in some cases yield an increased short-term performance in addition to the already known positive long term effects. The rule of thumb was shown to recommend smaller dimensions for combination systems than the more realistic analytical model.

Žemės šilumos siurblių sistemos surenka žemės šilumą, dažniausiai vertikaliu U formos gręžinio šilumokaičiu. U formos gręžinio šilumokaičio našumas priklauso nuo šiluminių žemės savybių, taip pat nuo gręžinyje naudojamo skiedinio ar užpildo. Siekiant, kad Žemės šilumos siurblių sistemos pasiteisintų, projektuojant reikia atsižvelgti į geologinių struktūrų šiluminį laidumą ir gręžinio šilumokaičio šiluminę varžą. Šio darbo tikslas buvo nustatyti šilumos siurblio, naudojančio grunto šilumą, pritaikymo individualioje sodyboje siurblio techninis ir ekonominis įvertinimas. Nustatyta, kad investicijos projektui įgyvendinti, kai gyvenamajam pastatui šildyti ir buitiniam karštam vandeniui ruošti šildymo sezono metu šilumą gamina šilumos siurblys, naudojantis grunto šilumą, palyginti su tiesioginiu elektros naudojimu pastatui šildyti ir buitiniam karštam vandeniui ruošti, atsiperka per 6,3 metus. Šiluminės reakcijos testas padeda nustatyti šiluminį žemės laidumą (λ) gręžinio šilumokaičio įrengimo vietoje, bei efektyvią gręžinio šilumokaičio šiluminę varžą (Rb). Pagrindinis tikslas buvo suderinti gręžinio šilumokaitį su žemės sąlygomis, taip pat nustatyti gręžinio gylio poveikį (60 m: VB2; 90 m: VB3). / Ground source heat pump systems exchange heat with the ground, often through a vertical, U-tube, borehole heat exchanger. The performance of this U-tube borehole heat exchanger depends on the thermal properties of the ground formation, as well as grout or backfill in the borehole. The design and economic probability of ground source heat pump systems need the thermal conductivity of geological structure and thermal resistance of borehole heat exchanger. An economic and technical evaluation of the heat pump, which is using ground heat, in individual homestead. It was found that the investment for this project, when heat pump using ground heat is used to heat residential building and domestic hot water in heating season, compared with the use of direct electric heating of buildings and domestic hot water payback within 6.3 years. Thermal response test method allows the in-situ determination of the thermal conductivity (l) of the ground formation in the vicinity of a borehole heat exchanger, as well as the effective thermal resistance (Rb) of this latter. The main goal has been to determine same in-situ ground type of borehole heat exchanger, including the effect of borehole’s depths (60 m: VB2; 90 m: VB3).

No description available.

Ground Source Heat Pumps (GHSPs) is a relevant application and around 3 million installations are setting up at the beginning of 2010 (IEA ECES Annex 21). The improvements in GSHPs are currently focused on the optimization of the system and the reduction of costs installations. The thermal conductivity of the ground and thermal resistance of the Borehole Heat Exchanger (BHE) are important design parameters for Borehole Thermal Energy Storage (BTES) systems. The Thermal Response Test (TRT), which has been used up to now in the GHE design, only allows estimating mean values for thermal conductivity of the surrounding ground and borehole resistance. However, the ground thermal conductivity and borehole thermal resistance may present local variation along the borehole depth. For improving conventional TRT, the optical fiber technology is applied to collect information about the temperature profiles in the borehole. Thermal Response Test (TRT) logs the inlet and outlet fluid temperatures; meanwhile, the Distributed Thermal Response Test (DTRT) carries out a profile of the temperature along the borehole depth, in this case with fiber optic cables. This Master of Science Thesis focuses on the comparison and analysis of DTRT measurements in a U-pipe borehole in order to estimate the thermal conductivity and the borehole thermal resistance along the borehole. The comparison and the analysis are carried out by: •Comparing the differences of TRT results depending on the heat power rate considered – constant and by steps-. •Comparing the results from two different resolution Distributed Test Sensing (DTS) equipments: Halo and Sentinel DTS. •Comparing the differences of TRT results as depending on the analytical procedure based on the line source theory: line source model and line source approximation.

Nowadays Ground Source Heat Pumps (GSHP) are widely used to provide heating and/or cooling as well as domestic hot water in commercial and residential buildings. The Swedish GSHPs market is the first one in the European Union with more than 378,000 units installed until 2010 according to the Swedish Heat Pump Association (SVEP). This thesis focuses on the improvement of a Thermal Response Test (TRT) apparatus available at KTH Royal Institute of Technology – Energy Technology Department. This equipment aims at improving Borehole Heat Exchanger (BHE) design in terms of size. Its key purpose is to evaluate two main BHE properties: the ground thermal conductivity and the borehole thermal resistance. A new command software is developed in order to control the TRT equipment and run TRT measurements. This new software is developed using Python as programming language and replaces an older program which needed LabVIEW to run. The TRT command software designed in this thesis provides the user with a simple and user-friendly interface to control each device of the equipment. Measurements are exported and saved to files which can be open with both Microsoft Excel and the analysis tool also developed in this thesis. The stand-alone evaluation tool can be used to analyse TRT and/or DTRT measurements. This analysis tool helps the user to compute large amount of data with few data manipulation and low computation time. Model parameters and TRT/DTRT measurement can be imported from files into it and different fitting settings are available to run the optimization, i.e. account for baseline variations (early activities in the borehole, different optimization periods, analysis during thermal recovery of the ground, single/multi-sectional analysis along the depth, among others). This report covers a theoretical description of TRT experiments and its models, the objectives of such a project and the development of the control and evaluation tools.

In Canada 15% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are produced by the residential sector’s energy demand. The majority of the energy demand is space heating which is primarily met with natural gas combustion. Motivation exists to reduce GHG emissions due to their contribution to climate change. Integrated Community Energy Harvesting (ICE-Harvest) systems seek to integrate thermal and electrical energy production, storage, redistribution, and consumption in a way that reduces GHG emissions. Borehole thermal energy storage (BTES) is implemented in ICE-Harvest systems as seasonal thermal energy storage. This thesis presents a novel model of BTES thermal response with reduced complexity to aid in early siting, design, optimization, and control systems development work for ICE-Harvest systems. The reduced model can be used to approximate periodic steady state BTES thermal response. The model provides information on average ground storage volume temperature, outlet fluid temperature, heat exchanger fluid to storage volume heat transfer rate, storage volume top loss heat transfer rate, storage volume side and bottom loss heat transfer rate, and annual thermal energy storage efficiency which aids system modelling efforts for BTES in solar thermal and ICE-Harvest systems. The reduced model is formed from a solution of the thermal energy balance equations for the BTES ground storage volume and heat exchanger fluid with simplified operating conditions for a yearly BTES charging and discharging cycle. Ground storage volume temperature is lumped as a single value. Heat transfer rates between the storage volume and the heat exchanger fluid and the storage volume and its surroundings are modelled with periodic steady state thermal resistance values for the charging and discharging timesteps. A TRNSYS DST simulation of BTES is validated against measurements from a BTES installation and TRNSYS DST is used to generate the periodic steady state thermal resistance values the reduced model requires. The periodic steady state thermal resistance values of BTES charging and discharging are dependent on BTES design parameters (spacing between boreholes, number of boreholes, borehole depth, and storage volume size) and ground thermal properties (thermal capacity and thermal conductivity) which is presented in a series of parameter sweeps with respect to a reference simulation. The reduced model predicts periodic steady state average storage volume temperature with a RMSD of 0.96°C for charging and 1.3°C for discharging when compared to the TRNSYS DST reference simulation. The reduced model predicts the periodic steady state heat exchanger total energy transfer within 1.8% for the charging timestep and 2.8% for the discharging timestep when compared to the TRNSYS DST reference simulation. The reduced model’s periodic steady state thermal resistance values are demonstrated to be independent of heat exchanger fluid inlet temperature except for the side and bottom loss thermal resistance during discharging. The reduced model cannot replicate the change in heat transfer direction that occurs during BTES discharging when the temperature of the storage volume decreases below the temperature of the surrounding ground, however, the magnitude of the energy transfer that would occur is negligible compared to the magnitude of the BTES heat exchanger total energy transfer. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

A ground source heat pump (GSHP) system utilizes a borehole heat exchanger to extract energy from the ground during the heating season and to deposit energy during the cooling season. This requires the drilling of an extended borehole, typically ranging from 100 to 200 meters in length, with a diameter of approximately 6 to 8 inches. Inside the borehole, a U-shaped tube is placed and surrounded by a grout that aids heat transfer between the tube and the surrounding soil. A heat transfer fluid, often a mixture of water and glycol, circulates through the tube to exchange heat with the ground. During the winter, the system draws energy from the ground for household space heating, while in the summer, when air conditioning is used, it expels energy from the house into the ground. In regions with heating-dominated climates, such as Canada, more energy is withdrawn from the ground during the winter than can be naturally restored during the summer. Consequently, the soil progressively cools over time, leading to reduced heat pump coefficient of performance and a decline in the overall system efficiency. This study explores a solution to this issue by integrating solar domestic hot water systems which employ solar thermal collectors to heat water for domestic purposes. These systems are relatively straightforward, consisting of solar thermal collectors, piping, pumps, a hot water tank, and controllers. The collector area is designed to deliver high solar fractions during the summer, but it typically exhibits lower efficiency in the winter. In Toronto, annual solar fraction, defined as the proportion of energy supplied by the solar thermal system to the total energy required by the load, typically range between 50-70%. This research aims to leverage solar thermal collectors for recharging the ground during the summer months. This approach enables the installation of larger collector areas, improving system performance in the winter, while simultaneously depositing excess energy into the ground during the summer. Notably, this study focuses on a single household located in Toronto, Canada, where the recommended solar thermal collector area is 10 square meters, and the borehole heat exchanger length is 150 meters. Also, it is assumed that four people are living in this house and required energy for heating and cooling of the house are 28000 and 7000 kWh per year, respectively. This approach offers a promising solution to balance seasonal heat transfer to the ground, mitigating the long-term decline in GSHP performance. The study demonstrates that by coupling the solar thermal system with the GSHP, the targeted outcomes are achievable. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)