Ground source heat pump
heating and/or cooling system that transfers heat to or from the ground
A ground source heat pump (also geothermal heat pump) is a heating/cooling system for buildings that use a heat pump to transfer heat to or from the ground, taking advantage of the relative constancy of temperatures of the earth through the seasons. Ground-source heat pumps (GSHPs)—or geothermal heat pumps (GHPs), as they are commonly termed in North America—are among the most energy-efficient technologies for providing HVAC and water heating, using less energy than that consumed by resistive electric heaters.
Efficiency is given as a coefficient of performance (CoP) which is typically in the range 3–6, meaning that the devices provide 3–6 units of heat for each unit of electricity used. Setup costs are higher than for other heating systems due to the requirement of installing ground loops over large areas or of drilling bore holes. Air-source heat pumps have lower set-up costs but have a lower CoP in very cold or very hot weather.
Thermal properties of the ground
Ground-source heat pumps take advantage of the difference between the ambient temperature and the temperature at various depths in the ground.
The thermal properties of the ground near the surface can be described as follows:
In the surface layer to a depth of about 1 meter, the temperature is very sensitive to sunlight and weather.
In the shallow layer to a depth of about 8–20 meters (depending on soil type), the thermal mass of the ground causes temperature variation to decrease exponentially with depth until it is close to the local annual average air temperature; it also lags behind the surface temperature, so that the peak temperature is about 6 months after the surface peak temperature.
Below that, in the deeper layer, the temperature is effectively constant, rising about 0.025 °C per metre according to the geothermal gradient.
The "penetration depth" is defined as the depth at which the temperature variable is less than 0.01 of the variation at the surface.
The public source identifies “Ground source heat pump” as heating and/or cooling system that transfers heat to or from the ground. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ground, source and heat.
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