State of the Art, Perspective and Obstacles of Ground-Source Heat Pump Technology in the European Building Sector: A Review

Davide Menegazzo, Giulia Lombardo, Sergio Bobbo, Michele De Carli and Laura Fedele
Additional contact information
Davide Menegazzo: Department of Industrial Engineering-Applied Physics Section, University of Padova, Via Venezia 1, 35131 Padova, Italy
Giulia Lombardo: Department of Industrial Engineering-Applied Physics Section, University of Padova, Via Venezia 1, 35131 Padova, Italy
Sergio Bobbo: Istituto per le Tecnologie della Costruzione, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Corso Stati Uniti 4, 35127 Padova, Italy
Michele De Carli: Department of Industrial Engineering-Applied Physics Section, University of Padova, Via Venezia 1, 35131 Padova, Italy
Laura Fedele: Istituto per le Tecnologie della Costruzione, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Corso Stati Uniti 4, 35127 Padova, Italy

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 7, 1-25

Abstract: In the European Union, 40% of the overall final energy consumption is attributable to the buildings sector. A reason for such data may be found considering that the great majority of the building stock is more than 40 years old. According to the European Commission, an interesting potential lies in the refurbishment of the building sector, and heat pump technology has been recognized as one of the most cost-effective solutions to tackle the environmental issue of this sector. Regarding heat pump technology, ground-source heat pumps (GSHPs) have been proven to be the most efficient solution on equal boundary conditions. Despite this, in most EU states’ markets, GSHPs hold only a small market share with respect to air-source heat pumps. In this paper, the state of art and possible future developments of GSHP technology have been reviewed together with a focus on the potential of such technology, most of all on the refurbishment of existing buildings, and on the obstacles to its spread. The state of art of borehole heat exchangers has been studied, focusing on the parameters characterizing the outside pipe and the pipe itself, i.e., pipe and grout materials. Moreover, an overview on the last developments involving refrigerants and secondary fluids is given. Finally, the design and control strategies of GSHPs have been reviewed.

Keywords: ground source heat pump; ground coupled heat pump; energy transition (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: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/7/2685/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/7/2685/ (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:15:y:2022:i:7:p:2685-:d:787916

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 ().