SIMULATION AND OPTIMIZATION OF GROUND SOURCE HEAT PUMP SYSTEMS

Almost any conventional heating and air-conditioning system may be satisfactorily modeled for en-ergy analysis purposes with a steady-state analysis. Ground source heat pump (GSHP) systems and hy-brid GSHP (HGSHP) systems are a clear exception. The fact that ground temperatures may change over a number of years adds some complexity to the modeling effort, and has delayed availability of GHSP and HGSHP models in building energy analysis programs. This paper gives an overview of recent re-search and developments in ground source heat pump system simulation, design, and optimization. First, developments related to modeling of components of the ground source heat pump (GSHP) system are presented- vertical ground loop heat exchanger, water source heat pump, standing column well, and sev-eral types of supplemental heat rejecters used in hybrid GSHP systems. Second, application of the simula-tion for design of vertical ground loop heat exchangers (GLHE) will be introduced. Third, several appli-cations of using system simulation in the design of GSHP systems will be presented. Finally, preliminary investigations of using the simulation within an optimization procedure will be discussed. Key words: ground source heat pump systems, geothermal, ground-couple