Abstract
Geothermal heat is a sustainable form of alternative energy, commonly associated with the production of electricity along tectonic plate boundaries and in volcanically active zones. Outside of these special regions however it is rare to find a geothermal gradient high enough to achieve pay back on projects for generating electricity. On the other hand regions containing sedimentary aquifers are far more common and these aquifers frequently have a sufficiently high temperature gradient to make direct use of the thermal energy attractive. Meanwhile highly permeable aquifers occurring at shallow depths are possible sources for cooling water or can be both heat sources and sinks when used in combination with heat pumps. We provide a case study for the use of thermally driven absorption chillers on the University of Western Australia campus in Perth and discuss two ongoing projects: one for the heating and cooling of the offices of the Australian Resources Research Council using a reversible heat pump and the other the climate control of the planned Australian International Gravitational Observatory.
Highlights
Sustainability becomes ever more important to engineering projects and it is forcing engineers to look at the world’s natural resources in new ways
We have studied the possibility of cooling the University of Western Australia (UWA), Crawley campus, with geothermally driven absorption chillers [6] and summarize the work below in the hope that it will guide and inspire other investigators to look at the world’s sedimentary aquifers when considering the sustainable resources available to them
The payback period is reasonable given that the proposed project would be novel in several respects – the first deep geothermal project in Western Australia and the first deep geothermal project in the world to be done purely for air conditioning
Summary
Sustainability becomes ever more important to engineering projects and it is forcing engineers to look at the world’s natural resources in new ways. Shallow and or superficial aquifers offer another resource that, when correctly managed, can contribute to project sustainability. The temperature at shallow depths is much a function of terrestrial solar heat gain – mirroring the annual average surface temperature, the engineering and resource management have much in common with deep geothermal systems. While ground source heat pumps are common in the Northern Hemisphere [4], they are less common in Australia perhaps due. We present two proposals for the clever use of heat pump systems for both heating and cooling
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