Long-term performance and life cycle assessment of energy piles in three different climatic conditions

Melis Sutman,Gianluca Speranza,Alessio Ferrari,Pyrène Larrey-Lassalle,Lyesse Laloui

doi:10.1016/j.renene.2019.07.035

Melis Sutman, Gianluca Speranza + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2019.07.035

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Abstract

The main purpose behind the use of energy piles is to enable the exploitation of geothermal energy for meeting the heating/cooling demands of buildings in an efficient and environment-friendly manner. However, the long-term performance of energy piles in different climatic conditions, along with their actual environmental impacts, has not been fully assessed. In this paper, the results of a finite element model taking into consideration the heating and cooling demands of a reference building, and the intermittent operation of a ground source heat pump, are revealed to examine the long-term performance of energy piles. Furthermore, a life cycle assessment model is implemented to compare the environmental performance of energy piles and a group of conventional piles. The environmental enhancement provided by the adoption of a ground source heat pump system is quantified with respect to a conventional heating and cooling system. The obtained results show that (i) the energy pile system can meet the majority of the heating/cooling demands, except during the peak demands, (ii) the geothermal operation results in temperature fluctuations within the energy piles and the soil, (iii) the use of energy piles results in a significant reduction in environmental impacts in the majority of the examined cases.

Highlights

Global energy requirements are expected to expand by 30% by 2040 as a result of global economy growth with an annual rate of 3.4%, a projected population increase of 1.6 billion, and inevitably increasing urbanisation [1]
This paper presents the long-term performance of a group of energy piles in terms of meeting the heating and cooling demands of a reference office building in three different climatic conditions
The results obtained on using the finite element model, in terms of meeting the heating and cooling demands from the building side, were employed to perform an life cycle assessment (LCA) analysis

Summary

Introduction

Global energy requirements are expected to expand by 30% by 2040 as a result of global economy growth with an annual rate of 3.4%, a projected population increase of 1.6 billion, and inevitably increasing urbanisation [1]. Space heating and cooling is the world's largest energy sector, for instance, it accounts for 50% of the final energy consumption of Europe [2]. Owing to global warming, economic growth, and urbanisation, the use of energy for space cooling has more than tripled between 1990 and 2016 [5]. In this context, the development and diffusion of reliable, economically viable, and environment-friendly technologies for meeting a significant portion of the energy requirements of the building sector is an important challenge

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