Numerical Study on the Long-Term Performance and Load Imbalance Ratio for Medium-Shallow Borehole Heat Exchanger System

Ruifeng Wang, Fenghao Wang, Yuze Xue, Jinghua Jiang, Yuping Zhang, Wanlong Cai and Chaofan Chen
Additional contact information
Ruifeng Wang: School of Human Settlements and Civil Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
Fenghao Wang: School of Human Settlements and Civil Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
Yuze Xue: Key Laboratory of Coal Resources Exploration and Comprehensive Utilization, Ministry of Natural Resources, Xi’an 710021, China
Jinghua Jiang: School of Human Settlements and Civil Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
Yuping Zhang: Key Laboratory of Coal Resources Exploration and Comprehensive Utilization, Ministry of Natural Resources, Xi’an 710021, China
Wanlong Cai: School of Human Settlements and Civil Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
Chaofan Chen: Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ, Permoserstraße 15, 04318 Leipzig, Germany

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 9, 1-19

Abstract: To contribute to the goal of carbon neutralization, the closed-loop borehole heat exchanger system is widely applied to use geothermal energy for building cooling and heating. In this work, a new type of medium-shallow borehole heat exchanger (MSBHE) is proposed, which is coaxial type and has a depth range between 200 m to 500 m. To investigate the long-term performance of MSBHE in the area with unbalanced cooling and heating load of buildings and the sustainable load imbalance ratio under different design parameters, a comprehensive numerical model is established. The results show that the drilling depth significantly influences the sustainable load imbalance ratio of MSBHE. As the drilling depth is increased from 200 m to 500 m, the load imbalance ratio of the MSBHE increases from 20.76% to 60.29%. In contrast, the load imbalance ratio is always kept at the same level with different inlet velocities and operation modes. Furthermore, in a 9-MSBHE array system, the heat exchanger located in the middle of the array has the lowest load imbalance ratio of 48.97%, which is 15.98% lower than the borehole in the edge location. This is caused by the significant influence of the shifted-load phenomenon among MSBHEs in an array system. The findings of the work imply that this newly proposed MSBHE can sustain a notable load imbalance ratio, which is particularly applicable to the areas with a strong imbalance of annual building load.

Keywords: medium-shallow borehole heat exchanger; load imbalance ratio; long-term performance; borehole heat exchanger array; load shifting (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 (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/9/3444/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/9/3444/ (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:9:p:3444-:d:811260

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 ().