Temperature Measurements on a Solar and Low Enthalpy Geothermal Open-Air Asphalt Surface Platform in a Cold Climate Region

Caner Çuhac, Anne Mäkiranta, Petri Välisuo, Erkki Hiltunen and Mohammed Elmusrati
Additional contact information
Caner Çuhac: School of Technology and Innovations, University of Vaasa, P.O. Box 700, FI-65101 Vaasa, Finland
Anne Mäkiranta: School of Technology and Innovations, University of Vaasa, P.O. Box 700, FI-65101 Vaasa, Finland
Petri Välisuo: School of Technology and Innovations, University of Vaasa, P.O. Box 700, FI-65101 Vaasa, Finland
Erkki Hiltunen: School of Technology and Innovations, University of Vaasa, P.O. Box 700, FI-65101 Vaasa, Finland
Mohammed Elmusrati: School of Technology and Innovations, University of Vaasa, P.O. Box 700, FI-65101 Vaasa, Finland

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 4, 1-16

Abstract: Solar heat, already captured by vast asphalt fields in urban areas, is potentially a huge energy resource. The vertical soil temperature profile, i.e., low enthalpy geothermal energy, reveals how efficiently the irradiation is absorbed or radiated back to the atmosphere. Measured solar irradiation, heat flux on the asphalt surface and temperature distribution over a range of depths describe the thermal energy from an asphalt surface down to 10 m depth. In this study, those variables were studied by long-term measurements in an open-air platform in Finland. To compensate the nighttime heat loss, the accumulated heat on the surface should be harvested during the sunny daytime periods. A cumulative heat flux over one year from asphalt to the ground was 70% of the cumulative solar irradiance measured during the same period. However, due to the nighttime heat losses, the net heat flux during 5 day period was only 18% of the irradiance in spring, and was negative during autumn, when the soil was cooling. These preliminary results indicate that certain adaptive heat transfer and storage mechanisms are needed to minimize the loss and turn the asphalt layer into an efficient solar heat collector connected with a seasonal storage system.

Keywords: asphalt solar collector; heat flux; distributed temperature sensing; low enthalpy geothermal energy; renewable energy; soil temperature profile (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/4/979/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/4/979/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:4:p:979-:d:323668

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().