Application of geothermal heat pumps in a renovated campus building

Recently, geothermal heat pumps (GHPs), which are normally known as ground-source heat pumps (GSHPs), offer many advantages for heating and cooling of commercial buildings due to the higher energy efficiency compared with conventional EHP system. In Korea, a recent requirement for mandatory implementation of the renewable energy systems in public building has been enforced for buildings with floor area exceeding 3000m². While GHPs may be more costly to install initially than the regular heat pumps, they can also produce markedly lower energy bills. For this reason, GHPs are scrutinized as the heating and cooling alternatives in the renovation of the campus buildings in Korea. In this study, we investigate the application methods of GHPs for the renovation of the campus building, and compare the energy costs of GHPs with that of conventional system. The objective of this study is to present an operation status of GSHPs in a renovated campus building as an example. In results, when the GHP with water storage has been operated during the whole year, the coefficient of performance (COP) for heating has reached from 3.12 to 5.27 according to the leaving fluid temperature and entering fluid temperature. The COP for cooling has reached from 2.86 to 5.49. In comparison results, the sum of the operating costs of GHP system was about one third of the current heating and cooling systems.