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Ground source heat pump systems represent an interesting example of renewable energy technology for heating and cooling of buildings. The connection with the ground is usually done by means of a closed loop where a heat-carrier fluid (pure water or a solution of antifreeze and water) flows and, in heating mode, moves heat from ground to refrigerant fluid of heat pump. A new solution is the direct expansion heat pump. In this case, the heat-carrier fluid inside the ground loop is the same refrigerant fluid of heat pump. This paper focuses on the energy performance of direct expansion ground source heat pump with borehole heat exchangers in heating mode, looking at residential building installations. For this purpose, the evaporating process of the refrigerant fluid inside vertical tubes is investigated in order to analyze the influence of the convective heat transfer coefficient on the global heat transfer with the surrounding ground. Then, an analytical model reported in literature for the design of common borehole heat exchangers has been modified for direct expansion systems. Finally, the direct expansion and common ground source heat pumps have been compared in terms of both total borehole length and thermal performance. Results indicate that the direct expansion system has higher energy performance and requires lower total borehole length compared to the common system. However, when the two systems are compared with the same mean fluid evaporating temperature, the overall length of the ground heat exchanger of the direct expansion heat pump is greater than that of the common system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A simulation model of ground source heat pump systems has been used to investigate to what extent a variable flow of the heat-carrier fluid of the ground loop affects the energy efficiency of the entire system. The model contemporaneously considers the borehole heat exchangers, the heat pump, the building load, and the control strategies for the circulation pumps of the ground loop. A constant speed of the circulation pumps of the ground loop was compared with a variable flow controlled by means of a constant temperature difference across the heat pump on the ground side considering the load profile of an office building located in North Italy. The analysis was carried out for a single U-tube, double U-tube and coaxial pipe heat exchangers. The control strategies adopted to manage the flow rate of the heat-carrier fluid of the ground loop affect both the heat exchange rate of the borehole field and the heat pump’s long-term energy efficiency. The simulations show considerable differences in the system’s seasonal energy efficiency. The constant speed of the circulation pumps leads to the best results as far as the heat pump’s energy performance was concerned, but this advantage was lost because of the greater amount of electrical energy used by the circulation pumps; this, of course, affects the energy efficiency of the entire system. The optimal solution appears then to be a constant temperature difference in the heat-carrier fluid across the heat pump. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]