Effects of climate change on long-term building heating performance of medium-deep borehole heat exchanger coupled heat pump

Abstract

The medium-deep borehole heat exchanger (MDBHE) coupled heat pump (HP) is a promising building heating solution for carbon reduction. Existing studies claim that the MDBHE-HP suffers a bottleneck challenge of long-term heating performance degradation because of the heating extraction attenuation of the MDBHE, which largely hinders the practical applications of the MDBHE-HP. This study innovatively proposes and justifies that climate change positively compromises the heating extraction attenuation of the MDBHE and significantly improves the long-term building heating performance of the MDBHE-HP. Climate change reduces the building heating load, which mitigates the heating extraction attenuation of the MDBHE, thereby reducing the unmet level of the building heating load. The mitigated heating extraction attenuation enhances the coefficient of performance of the MDBHE-HP, thereby reducing the heating energy consumption. Case studies of 30-year operation in the severe cold and cold zones of China with different geological conditions show that while the heating extraction attenuation of the MDBHE increases the heating energy consumption by 5.0% – 8.7%, climate change reduces the heating energy consumption by 9.2% – 17.0%. Moreover, climate change reduces the unmet level of the building heating load by 70.5% – 100%. Therefore, the positive effects of climate change on the long-term building heating performance of MDBHE-HP should be considered, which contributes to promoting the practical applications of the MDBHE-HP for low-carbon building heating.