Abstract
In a hot and dry country such as Saudi Arabia, air-conditioning systems consume seventy per cent of the electrical energy. In order to reduce this demand, conventional air -conditioning technology should be replaced by more efficient renewable energy systems. These should be compared to the current standard systems which use air source heat pumps (ASHPs). These have a poor performance when the air temperature is high. In Saudi Arabia, this can be as much as 50 °C. The purpose of this work, therefore, is to simulate and evaluate the performance of ground source heat pumps (GSHPs) compared with systems employing (ASHPs). For the first time, both systems were comprehensively modelled and simulated using the Transient System Simulation (TRNSYS). In addition, the Ground Loop Design (GLD) software was used to design the length of the ground loop heat exchanger. In order to assess this configuration, an evaluation of a model of a single story office building, based on the climatic conditions and geological characteristics that occur in the city of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia was investigated. The period of evaluation was twenty years in order to determine the Coefficient of Performance (COP), Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER) and power consumption. The simulation results show that the GSHP system has a high performance when compared to ASHP. The average annual COP and EER were 4.1 and 15.5 for the GSHP compared to 3.8 and 11 for the ASHP respectively, and the GSHP is a feasible alternative to ASHP with an 11 years payback period with an 18% total cost saving over the simulation period and 36% lower annual energy consumption. The TRNSYS model shows that despite the positive results of the modeling, the high rate of the underground thermal imbalance (88%) could lead to a system failure in the long term
Highlights
Nowadays the use of renewal energy has become a fundamental choice in most developed and developing countries, in order to reduce the energy demand and CO2 equivalent emissions
The results showed that a 40% saving in energy could be achieved by using the ground source heat pumps (GSHPs), compared to the air source heat pumps (ASHPs)
The monthly energy consumption of the GSHP and ASHP systems are compared in detail in Table 4 and Figure 9
Summary
Nowadays the use of renewal energy has become a fundamental choice in most developed and developing countries, in order to reduce the energy demand and CO2 equivalent emissions. In hot/dry and hot/ humid climate countries such as in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), most of the energy consumption is used for heating and cooling purposes. Air source heat pumps (ASHP) have become the most popular and commonly used systems for cooling and heating. These use outside air for both climate seasons, one for the heat source and the other for the heat sink.[1] External temperature variations can cause a drop in performance in either season if, for example, the summers are too hot or the winters too cold
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