<p>Remote, cold climates present challenges to finding safe and affordable options to heat homes. In Alaska, residential ground source heat pumps (GSHPs) have been gaining in popularity to fill this gap. However, there is little research on their long‐term performance or effect on soil temperatures. The extended heating season and cold soils of Alaska provide a harsh testing ground for GSHPs, even those designed and marketed for colder climates. The large and unbalanced heating load of cold climates creates a challenging environment for GSHPs. In 2013 the Cold Climate Housing Research Center (CCHRC) installed a GSHP at its Research and Testing Facility (RTF) in Fairbanks, Alaska. The heat pump replaced an oil‐fired condensing boiler heating a 464 m2 (5,000 ft2) office space via an in‐floor hydronic radiant heating system. The ground heat exchanger (GHE) was installed in moisture‐rich silty soils underlain with permafrost near 0°C (32°F). The heat extraction coils are horizontal slinky loops buried at a depth of 2.7 m (9 ft.). The intent of the installation was to observe and monitor the system over a 10‐year period in order to develop a better understanding of the performance of GSHPs in sites with permafrost and to help inform future design. As of this writing, the heat pump system has been running for 7 heating seasons. The efficiency in those 7 heating seasons has been variable with ups and downs that have been difficult to explain. This paper seeks to understand the variability in performance as well as make recommendations for GSHP use in other cold climates.</p>

Performance Considerations for Ground Source Heat Pumps in Cold Climates

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ES/ES2021/volume/84881

ASME 2021 Energy Sustainability (ES2021)

Supporting the need among researchers worldwide for additional online and multimedia content, ASME now offers the ASME Conference Video Collection. This platform will collect and provide long-term access to conference presentation videos, encompassing all technology areas within ASME's technical conference and events program. About 30,000-40,000 engineers across all mechanical engineering and related disciplines participate in ASME conferences each year. This includes authors of approximately 6,000 to 8,000 technical papers published by ASME, the majority of whom also submit video presentations for our virtual conferences. The video collection will be available as an add-on to existing product packages or as a separate subscription.