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Article history: Shallow geothermal energy is of great interest for HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning)
Received 20 October 2015 designers. While increasingly popular in the residential and commercial sectors, shallow applications
Revised 14 March 2016 are still little used in the industrial sector and unfamiliar to policy makers, designers and stakeholders
Accepted 9 May 2016
[1]. Despite this, geothermal applications are feasible for industrial plant for several reasons: operating
at high load factors and supplying energy to a single location, geothermal systems would cut energy
costs, a large slice of overall industrial production costs. This paper presents the results of a feasibility
Keywords:
study carried out for an industrial shallow geothermal project, where the required preheating to the inno-
Ground source heat pumps
Numerical simulation
vative Expanding-Gas-Power-Transformation (EGPT) process was supplied through a Hybrid
Expanding Gas Power Transformation Geothermal-Air Transcritical Heat Pump. Focus was given to modeling the geothermal component to
Sensitivity analysis comply with the heat pump working temperature requirements, integrating this with geostatistics and
numerical simulation of heat/water flows.
Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.seta.2016.05.003
2213-1388/Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
94 S. Focaccia et al. / Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 16 (2016) 93–105
heats a secondary fluid, typically an organic working fluid with a Pump [47]. To produce exportable electrical power, the COP of
low boiling point. Vapor generated at the evaporator is used to the heat pump must be higher than 2.0, which depends entirely
drive a turbine. On leaving the turbine, the working fluid is con- on the ambient temperature available and the gas preheating tem-
densed and pumped back to the evaporator, passing through a ser- perature required. The minimum ambient temperature threshold
ies of devices forming a closed loop. By modeling each device, a for system applicability is 0 °C. By exploiting geothermal energy
complete cycle simulation is achieved. alone or with a combination of aerothermal and geothermal
Kalina cycles have been used to generate electricity from energy, the power produced by the system is always higher than
geothermal sources. A notable example is the 2 MWe power plant the power absorbed by the Transcritical Heat Pump, giving rise
in Husavik, Iceland [18]. Started in 2000, the plant utilizes a 124 °C to zero-consumption or even a positive-production process [47].
hot water geothermal source, which cools down to 80 °C, to gener- The pre-feasibility study carried out on a viable application
ate electricity. The geothermal water leaving the plant at 80 °C is investigated the potential integration of EGPT and shallow
used for urban district heating. Medium enthalpy geothermal geothermal energy, and identified preliminary guidelines for the
energy has huge potential as a source of district heating and cool- correct analysis and design of such a system in different climatic
ing and its use is expected to increase [19,20]. Examples in Europe conditions.
include the district heating schemes of Ferrara [21], Southampton
[22], Munich [23] and the Pannonian basin [24]. Many other plants
under construction or recently completed will also increase the Materials and methods
deployment of ORC-based combined heat and power systems
[25,26]. In the case of district heating alone, there are many exam- The following interdependent components must be taken into
ples of shallow low-enthalpy resource schemes linked to heat account when designing a borehole heat exchanger field [48,49]:
pumps. In Paris [27] and Milan [28] water stored in the first aquifer
below the city is used to feed several high-temperature heat System energy demand (peak power, functioning temperature
pumps linked to the network. In other cases, the heat pump uses and timing).
seawater to provide district heating in Stockholm [29,30], Helsinki Heat pump appropriate to the energy requirement.
[31] and Tallinn [32]. Underground providing the thermal energy.
Heat pump-based district heating exploits low-enthalpy Possible GSHP systems providing ambient energy to the heat
geothermal energy through water extraction, i.e. open loop cir- pump and building.
cuits. Reservoirs like aquifers, lakes or even seas are widely pre-
ferred for these applications on account of their favorable flow For relatively small residential applications (generally up to
rates. 30 kW) technical norms allow the use of simplified design meth-
Non-residential applications using geo-exchangers are found in ods, based prevalently on peak heat pump power, the type of
the agricultural and winery sector. There are many examples underground and average yearly working hours. For more complex
around Europe of greenhouses [33–36] and wine cellars [37] oper- and powerful industrial systems, these simplifications are not fea-
ating on closed loop geothermal energy systems. In greenhouses, sible and a detailed analysis must be conducted [50–52].
gas-fired low-temperature heat pumps provide both heating and For the design of a large borehole field with more than 100
cooling and CO2 controlled injection [38]. Dedicated production BHEs, as in the case of industrial projects, the methodology must:
processes in the wine-making sector, such as grape cooling and fer-
mentation cooling, use low-enthalpy geothermal energy [39]. This (a) Assess the hydrogeological site: lithologies, permeability,
energy source is also appearing in innovative processes such as aquifer condition and flow velocity.
freshwater production and desalination [40]. (b) Assess the underground thermal parameters: thermal con-
Finally, other frequent non-residential applications are the ductivity of the different layers, geothermal flow, natural
heating and cooling of industrial sheds and office buildings to temperature gradient.
ensure comfort-zone temperatures for occupants. Eicker and (c) Evaluate the technical feasibility of the various design alter-
Vorschulze provide several examples along with the related energy natives for the geoexchangers and their configurations/dis-
data [41]. posal in the ground.
As regards thermal energy storage applications, shallow
geothermal energy systems have been successfully integrated with As regards the detailed analytical design of borehole heat
solar thermal energy applications for higher storage efficiency [42]. exchanger fields, the ASHRAE American method is one of the most
Several recent central solar heating pilot plants with seasonal heat commonly used (see Italian technical norm UNI 11466:2012 [52]
storage in Central and Northern Europe have proved the suitability and ASHRAE Transactions [48]). The methodology is iterative with
of these systems and confirmed their high energy efficiency poten- the following phases:
tial [43,44]. Moreover, recent studies have also shown their appli-
cability in Southern Europe climates as well. The excess energy 1. Identification of the energy to be extracted from the under-
produced by solar thermal panels in climates with high irradiation ground, based on the equivalent monthly/yearly hours and on
is injected into the ground and then recovered through GSHP, pro- the heat pump load factor.
viding a solution to the overheating problems of solar thermal sys- 2. Choice of the geoexchanger and the connection configuration.
tems [45,46]. 3. Calculation, on the basis of the soil’s thermal properties, of the
Our case study presents an innovative non-residential applica- total length of geoexchangers required to meet thermal needs.
tion of low-enthalpy geothermal energy. It is a pre-feasibility study 4. Iterative analysis to verify the system’s working temperature
of a closed loop shallow geothermal system entirely slaved to a based on the hypothesis made for the chosen geoexchange sys-
new industrial application, the Expanding Gas Power Transforma- tem, both on an annual and decennial basis.
tion (EGPT) process that considerably reduces CO2 emissions in the
natural gas pressure reduction stations. EGPT is an innovative tech- It should be noted that the particular heating requirements of
nique harnessing gas expansion by means of a turboexpander gen- the EGPT process follow seasonality only in part and involve
erator, extracting motive power from the gas flow, whilst the energy consumption mainly by the preheater boiler: higher gas
required preheat is provided by a connected Transcritical Heat consumption during winter, but almost zero take-up during
S. Focaccia et al. / Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 16 (2016) 93–105 95
summer. Such a highly specific process makes simplified calcula- the software has a 3D module that couples heat and mass trans-
tions of underground thermal behavior completely inadequate. port, very important in our case since we had the dual problem
For this reason, it was decided to study the system with a numer- of heat transfer linked to groundwater flow. FEFLOWÒ allowed us
ical modeling approach that allows the dynamic interaction of the to realize as many layers as needed, and upload punctual database
system components. information for each layer (thermal conductivity, thermal capacity,
The numerical analysis consists of: hydraulic conductivity, vertical thermal gradient).
FEFLOWÒ has been widely used to simulate classical borehole
Geostatistical simulation of thermal conductivity characterizing heat exchanger applications. Appropriate Finite Elements modules
the geothermal reservoir. have been added to the software for efficient formulation of
Numerical finite element simulation of the behavior of the ther- geothermal heating systems, both for steady state [57,58] and
mal flow inside the geoexchange system in order to evaluate the transient simulation [59]. Comparison with experimental results
effective extractable energy and thermal interference between has shown the model to be quite robust in predicting heat
geoexchangers during prolonged operation. exchange rates for a ground-source heat pump system [60], simu-
lating the aquifer thermal plumes and their effect on the BHE
Geostatistical simulation closed loop applications [61], and modeling the behavior of open
loop applications. FEFLOWÒ can also be used both for specific site
Thermal conductivity is a fundamental parameter for the simulation [62] and as a strategic resource management tool [63].
numerical simulation of the geoexchange system, since it is It has been used as a benchmark for evaluating performances of
directly connected to heat transfer calculations [53]. As in the area other modeling tools [64].
of the prefeasibility study there were no direct field measurements
of the thermal properties of the underground, we used the mean Case study and main calculation
values and variability ranges provided in the literature [50]. The
distribution and spatial variability of thermal conductivity The case study is related to the application of a geo-exchanger
were defined based on several similar cases and used to run system to deliver high efficiency heat to cold, incoming pipeline
geostatistical simulations to generate the parameters required by gas in a pressure reduction station, recovering mechanical energy
a user-defined grid, respecting the value distribution and for the production of power through a turboexpander. The process
variogram model. The geostatistical software used was Geo-MSÒ, is made possible by a Transcritical Heat Pump using CO2 as a refrig-
developed by Instituto Superior Técnico of Lisbon and Gaussian erant that delivers heat to the gas, raising the temperature to
Sequential Simulation was chosen as the geostatistical simulation around 80 °C (depending on the pump manufacturer), and counter-
technique [54]. acting the cooling caused by turboexpansion [65]. Fig. 1 shows a
diagram of the system components and their interaction.
Numerical modeling of underground heat and mass transfer Commercially available transcritical heat pumps have a power
range of 50 kW to more than 1 MW.
In order to evaluate the behavior of large-scale applications, we Table 1 shows an example of EGPT performance at different
used a dynamic simulator of the heat and mass transfer in the ambient reservoir temperatures at a constant preheating of about
underground. For this case we chose the software FEFLOWÒ (Finite 80 °C, supplied by the Transcritical Heat Pump [47].
Element Flow simulator), which has a specific section for modeling In most climates, the use of ambient air for a considerable part
and simulating borehole heat exchangers and allows definition of of the year gives better performance than the underground, where
the hydrogeological modeling of the study area. The numerical temperatures, at limited depth (between 20 and 60 m, neutral
model implemented is based on the Al-Khoury model [55,56], with zone), is practically constant year round and equal to the average
generalized formulations for borehole heat exchangers. In addition, ambient air temperature over the year [66].
Fig. 1. Simplified scheme of the Expanding Gas Power Transformation process. P0, T0: natural gas data before transformation; high pressure, low temperature; P1, T1: natural
gas data after preheating through Transcritical Heat Pump; high pressure, high temperature; P2, T2: natural gas data after depressurization in the Turbo Expander; low
pressure, low temperature.
96 S. Focaccia et al. / Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 16 (2016) 93–105
Table 3
Thermal conductivity [W/(m K)] of the different lithologies, together with the layer thickness in the case study area. Results of a preliminary geological study.
Lithotypes Thermal conductivity [W/(m K)] Depth [m] Layer thickness [m]
Minimum Average Maximum
Clayey silt 0.40 0.50 1.00 3.50 3.50
Silty sand 0.30 0.45 0.90 4.50 1.00
Saturated gravel 1.80 1.80 1.80 17.00 12.50
Marl-sandstone 1.35 2.20 4.40 152.00 135.00
S. Focaccia et al. / Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 16 (2016) 93–105 97
Fig. 2. Distribution of thermal conductivity for the three lithotypes considered Fig. 3. Variogram model of the thermal conductivity for the three lithotypes: silty
variables: silty sand (a), clayey silt (b) and marl-sandstone unit (c). sand (a), clayey silt (b) and marl-sandstone unit (c).
This preliminary analysis does not, however, take the following Table 4
Characterization of spatial variability of ground thermal conductivity: parameters of
aspects into account:
the variogram models of the three lithotypes: c0 nugget effect, csf sill of the spherical
model, asf range of the spherical model.
Underground thermal depletion around each BHE due to con-
Lithotypes Variogram parameters
tinuous heat extraction.
Medium term behavior of each BHE at winter’s end. c0 csf asf
Thermal interference between BHEs and creation of areas of Clayey silt 0.025 0.035 30
criticality in the center of the borehole field. Silty sand 0.015 0.040 20
The natural thermal recharge capacity of the underground Marl-sandstone 0.100 0.170 40
Fig. 5. Design hypothesis with only heat extraction. Simulation of thermal behavior maintaining a constant temperature difference between inlet and outlet (solution a).
Fig. 6. Design hypothesis with only heat extraction. Simulation of thermal behavior maintaining the thermovector fluid at constant inlet temperature (solution b).
S. Focaccia et al. / Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 16 (2016) 93–105 99
site [67]. In a geothermal industrial application, there is usually no We assumed that the maximum energy extractable from the air
cooling on-peak period, with the result that all the underground was injected in the ground.
thermal energy storage potential can be released. The case study The analytical calculation gave us these parameters for the
took this second hypothesis into account, artificially stimulating system:
taking heat from the external air.
To evaluate the thermal energy extractable from the external – thermal power stored in the ground: 350 kWt;
air, climate data for the area over 10 years (2002–2011) were stud- – inlet temperature of the thermovector fluid in the boreholes in
ied, and the number of summer days (from May to September) injection: 24 °C;
determined when temperatures were statistically over 20 °C – outlet temperature of the thermovector fluid from the bore-
(Table 6). holes in injection: 19 °C;
The temperature of the storage fluid (24 °C) required to ther- – flow rate of the fluid in storage: 62 m3/h;
mally recharge the ground was then defined. – number of vertical BHEs: 200;
Another efficient heat storage alternative could be to reuse the – depth of the boreholes: 150 m;
air after its passage through the Transcritical Heat Pump evapora- – distance between the boreholes: 6 m;
tor. The data relating to this case are given in the following table. – borehole disposal: squared grid 13 15 wells;
As average air temperature from May to September is normally – total needed area: 7.500 m2;
14 °C, and 24 °C only during the summer months (June to August), – connections: parallel configuration with direct return on all the
this solution would only be feasible in summer (see Table 7). circuits;
The advantage of the second alternative is that we could use the – maximum absorption of electricity from the circulation pumps:
exchangers already available in the thermo-hydraulic circuit, while 15 kWe;
in the first case, another exchanger has to be added. – inlet temperature of thermovector fluid to boreholes in extrac-
tion: 3 °C;
– outlet temperature of thermovector fluid from boreholes: 8 °C.
Table 6
Analysis of air temperatures in the summer period over a 10-year period. Again, numerical modeling was performed considering heat
injection prior to heat extraction; the results for one-year opera-
Month Number of days with % of days with Average
T > 20°C T > 20°C temperature (°C) tion are given in Figs. 7 and 8.
May 5 16% 21.1
June 27 90% 23.5 Numerical simulation of thermal flow
July 31 100% 25.7
August 31 100% 24.9 In order to validate the analytical models, the area was modeled
September 15 50% 21.9
and simulated in FEFLOWÒ on the basis of 200 BHEs (in a 6 m grid
configuration, as a compromise solution between thermal interac-
tion between BHE and available space for drilling) in a
Table 7 100 100 200 m3 regular grid field.
Analysis of air-source working system in summer period. The geological strata were assumed to lie parallel. Their specific
Spring Summer
properties of thermal conductivity, thermal capacity, permeability
and undisturbed ground temperature were taken into account.
Thermal power at the evaporator 414.0 kW 414.0 kW
Flow rate 75.0 m3/h 74.0 m3/h
The boundary conditions were the following:
Inlet temperature 19.0 °C 29.0 °C
Outlet temperature 14.0 °C 24.0 °C (a) boundary temperature equal to the undisturbed ground
temperature;
Fig. 7. Design hypothesis with heat extraction and recharge. Simulation of thermal behavior keeping constant temperature difference between inlet and outlet of 5 °C
(solution a).
100 S. Focaccia et al. / Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 16 (2016) 93–105
Fig. 8. Design hypothesis with heat extraction and recharge. Simulation of thermal behavior keeping constant inlet temperature of thermovector fluid of 3 °C (solution b).
(b) constant aquifer depth (6.5 m), with steady velocity of 1. 108 days of heat injection in the ground;
0.054 m/day. 2. 47 days of natural recharge of the ground;
In the first case, the BHE was submitted to continuous heat 3. 150 days of heat extraction from the ground;
extraction for 5 months, maintaining a constant 5 °C difference 4. 60 days of natural recharge of the ground.
between inlet and outlet temperature. Final inlet temperature
was 0.7 °C while outlet temperature was 5.7 °C, too low for our During the first phase, the ground was recharged through the
purpose. injection of 24 °C in the ground, inducing a ground temperature
Although the reservoir was able to provide the constant power variation close to the BHEs. In winter, after 47 days of natural heat
needed for the whole functioning period, the variable inlet and recharge of the ground, the heat extraction was maintained for
outlet temperatures had to be managed since they did not main- 5 months, but the outlet temperature could not be kept at 8 °C.
tain the 3 °C and 8 °C of the hypothesis.
The same BHE, in a second case, underwent heat extraction for Results
5 months and maintained a constant inlet temperature of 3 °C.
However, the reservoir was unable to provide the constant power Numerical simulation allows simulation of long-term borehole
needed to maintain a constant inlet temperature. In fact, at the end field thermal behavior. The results over a 10 year period are pre-
of the 5 months, the outlet temperature had fallen to 7.3 °C, insuf- sented below for both solutions: heat extraction only (solution
ficient to assure the required DT of 5 °C. n°1) and heat extraction and recharge (solution n°2) Figs. 9–12.
The second alternative was simulated with the following It should be noted, however, that simulation has thus far not been
scheme: confirmed by experimental results, the BHE field being a hypothe-
Fig. 9. Design hypothesis with heat extraction only. Simulation of long-term thermal behavior keeping constant temperature difference between inlet and outlet of 5 °C
(solution a).
S. Focaccia et al. / Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 16 (2016) 93–105 101
Fig. 10. Design hypothesis with heat extraction only. Simulation of long-term thermal behavior keeping constant inlet temperature of thermovector fluid of 3 °C (solution b).
Fig. 11. Design hypothesis with heat extraction and recharge. Simulation of long-term thermal behavior keeping constant temperature difference between inlet and outlet of
5 °C (solution a).
Fig. 12. Design hypothesis with heat extraction and recharge. Simulation of long-term thermal behavior keeping constant inlet temperature of thermovector fluid of 3 °C (solution b).
102 S. Focaccia et al. / Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 16 (2016) 93–105
sis at the pre-feasibility study phase. The use of proven robust soft- on test boreholes [68]. Even then, a comprehensive assessment of
ware like FEFLOWÒ is therefore fundamental, there being no exper- underground behavior may not be achieved since TRTs are
imental data available for the specific site. generally performed for a limited period of time and so are not
representative of the entire production process of a borehole field.
Comments to the results In addition, TRTs are usually performed on just a few BHE, a
situation that fails to imitate an entire BHE field.
The results show the effectiveness of summer recharge, which For all these reasons, both the design and TRT phase of any pro-
increases over the long term. ject must be preceded by temperature sensitivity analyses based
Thanks to underground thermal recharge, fluid temperatures on a series of underground thermal parameters. The case study
during heat exploitation increase from 0.5 °C to 1.0 °C, which, espe- included a two-dimensional sensitivity analysis starting from the
cially given the strict EGPT working conditions, can be crucial to underground parameters and covering the borehole field design.
any decision to adopt shallow geothermal reservoir technology to In other words, long-term temperature variation was calculated
meet this type of heat demand. for a range of different equivalent underground thermal conductiv-
The added value of energy storage increases over the long term. ity values for a borehole field of unchanged length and
Although the maximum temperature rise achieved at the outset connections.
does not increase with time, minimum temperatures are, however, The sensitivity analysis shows summer thermal energy storage
damped, in this case never falling below 0.7 °C. to be fundamental. In fact, in the heat-extraction-only configura-
The only negative aspect is the electric power absorption of the tion, solution (b) (keeping constant inlet temperature), an over-
circulation pumps, needed for thermal energy storage, and which estimation of 14% of the underground thermal conductivity
must be included when calculating the energy and economic costs provides an outlet fluid temperature of more than 80% lower than
of operating large borehole fields. In the case examined, the project design. In the heat-extraction-and-recharge hypothesis,
underground thermal recharge was necessary to guarantee the this effect is damped, and the same over-estimation of 14% of
temperature limits required by the specific industrial process. As thermal conductivity gives a temperature deviation of around
a result, the electricity consumption requirement for thermal 40% lower than expected, with a 50% reduction in the risk of failure
energy storage must be included in any return-on-investment cal- (Fig. 14). Solution (a) (keeping constant temperature difference
culations. In this particular case, the energy requirement was esti- between inlet and outlet) gives similar results (Fig. 13). This is
mated at around 92 MWh/y in fact a negligible portion of the total because, on the one hand, low thermal conductivity obstructs heat
electric energy produced by the turboexpander of about 325 kWe transfer, and therefore underground thermal energy exploitation,
with a 500 kWt approx. thermal capacity transcritical heat pump. but on the other, permits higher values of energy storage in the
This electric energy quota completely covers both the peak underground since the underground layers near the borehole
transcritical heat pump power (around 170 kWe, see Table 1) and retain their heat, with limited radial heat transfer occurring.
the peak power of the BHE field circulation pumps (around The calculation results show the importance in non-residential
15 kWe). geothermal applications of applying a probabilistic approach and
In the hypothesis of a 24-h operating turboexpander, there is long-term numerical simulation tools. In fact, when dealing with
perfect contemporaneity between production and consumption, industrial applications, heat requirements do not follow or, only
with an excess power production of around 140 kWe, which consti- partially follow, seasonality, with the result that standard proce-
tutes free electric energy that can be sold on the market. In the case dures for residential heat pump applications are not suitable and
of heat storage, there is no additional electric absorption because can lead to considerable errors or under-estimations of failure
the two possibilities presented – direct use of external air temper- risks. In these types of applications, the underground’s finiteness
ature or cascade use of air source system - both work by means of is all too evident, and the thermal reservoir can be dangerously
the heat exchanger without compression. Using a hybrid combina- depleted if not properly analyzed.
tion of air and ground sources to ensure underground thermal
recharge during summer, the system never allows the temperature
to go below the required 8 °C, with the result that the COP never Discussion
goes below 3. The preliminary energy and economic analysis of
the system is presented in Table 8. It is difficult to produce a universal recipe for calculating the
This preliminary precautionary result may be higher by 20–25% economic attractiveness of the use of ground source applied to
in the event of (mainly summer) ambient temperatures of more the EGPT technology. The factors influencing the validity of the
than 8 °C, while the combined use of ground source and energy investment are:
storage can ensure there are no significant temperature and effi-
ciency drops during the winter. – Local electricity prices and feed-in tariffs.
The uncertainty embedded in this approach is due to the fact – Investment costs for the wells or BHE field, which differ with
that, despite the sophisticated geostatistical tools available, under- the different labor costs in the various countries, and from site
ground thermal properties cannot be known a priori, only esti- to site, on account of geological and hydrogeological variability.
mated. Calculation of exact parameter values requires production – Ambient temperature conditions, which make the use of pure
tests such as the Thermal Response Test (TRT) to be performed air-source more or less feasible.
– Natural gas flow variations at pressure reduction stations, a fac-
tor that also depends on special local/regional energy demand.
Table 8
Minimum energy results for the EGPT system, using hybrid air and ground source For the specific case study presented, the ambient temperature
combination with seasonal thermal energy storage.
does not allow the use of the air source heat pump for the entire
Power (kW) Energy (MWh/y) year, because, for almost 25% of the time, temperatures are below
Turboexpander production 325 2.847 the required limit (Ta < 8 °C). This means that for 25% of the time,
Heat pump consumption 167 1.460 the transcritical heat pump cannot work with aerothermal energy
Circulation pumps consumption 15 92 alone. As an alternative to hybrid ground-air source heat, there are
Exportable electrical output 143 1.295
two other basic hybrid solutions combining an air source:
S. Focaccia et al. / Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 16 (2016) 93–105 103
Fig. 13. Comparison between sensitivity analyses, keeping constant temperature difference between inlet and outlet of 5 °C (solution a): the percentage deviations caused by
potential estimation errors of underground thermal conductivity are compared with the heat extraction only design hypothesis and the heat extraction and recharge design
hypothesis, for both inlet and outlet fluid.
Fig. 14. Comparison between sensitivity analyses, at a constant thermovector inlet fluid temperature of 3 °C (solution b): percentage deviations percentage caused by
potential estimation errors of underground thermal conductivity are compared with the heat-extraction-only design hypothesis and the heat-extraction-and-recharge design
hypothesis, for outlet fluid.
– Preheating the natural gas in other ways and not with a trans- On the other hand, the hybrid ground-air solution presented in
critical heat pump, thereby maintaining the turboexpander of the case study requires the installation of a 200 Borehole Heat
the EGPT process working all year long. This most frequently Exchanger field at 150 m, for a thermal power of 322 kWt with
involves inserting a backup boiler in the circuit, which uses part return temperatures of 8 °C, working practically uninterruptedly
of the natural gas present in the station. For the case study con- for 5 months. This means additional investments ranging from
sidered, the exportable electrical output decreases proportion- 1.500 k€ to 1.800 k€ depending on the specific underground
ally to the natural gas quota used, which was around conditions, which are unknown a priori, and which can only be
1.100 MW h at 80 °C. estimated during pre-feasibility phases.
– Bypassing the entire EGPT system and depressurizing natural The feasibility of the hybrid ground-air solution increases, the
gas through a throttling expansion valve. In this case, the expor- more ambient air temperatures decrease for the following reasons:
table electrical output decreases by 20%.
– Less available optimal aerothermal energy.
In both cases, there is no electrical consumption by the BHE – Natural gas transit through the grids, theoretically, increases
field circulation pumps. because of increased heating needs.
104 S. Focaccia et al. / Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 16 (2016) 93–105
These two facts are in contradiction, because stopping the tur- coupled to shallow geothermal energy systems. Although the sim-
boexpander for long periods causes a major fall off of free power ulation results need to be compared with real experimental data in
production, which otherwise could be significant in the presence order to prove their accuracy, the study proposed could go a long
of huge natural gas consumption for heating. way to defining the appropriate market for EGPT processes and
Since aerothermal energy cannot supply the desired tempera- their very tight operating temperature range.
ture ranges required by EGPT processes for most of the year in
Artic, continental, Atlantic and mountain climates, the hybrid Acknowledgements
ground-air transcritical heat pump would seem very promising.
In contrast, the hybrid ground-air solution would not appear This study was possible thanks to the collaboration between
suitable to Mediterranean, temperate, and generally hot climates Nuovo Pignone – General Electric and CINIGEO – Italian National
where more aerothermal than geothermal energy is employed. Interuniversity Consortium of Georesources Engineering, the lead
The site considered by the case study, in a mountainous zone in author of this paper.
the Apennines in Central Italy, where air temperature can support
the EGPT process for almost 75% of the year, proved a border-line
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