CADDET Energy Efficiency
Energy piles as an efficient way
to store heat
by Frans Koene (ECN) and Charles Geelen (TNO-MEP)
A unique thermal installation will soon go into operation in the Dutch
village of Veenendaal. The system uses energy piles for the storage of
heat and cold in the ground. This is a cost-effective way to include the
underlying soil in the heat management of a building.
No less than 350 foundation piles will
be necessary to support the new office
building of the Kender Thijssen
computer firm in the village of
Veenendaal. Of these, 150 differ from
normal concrete construction piles in
that they combine the function of
support with that of a heat exchanger,
hence the name ‘energy pile’. This is
made possible by embedding pipes or
ducts into the pile structure, which is
a cost-effective way of installing the
ground heat exchangers. The
installation will be used both for
heating and cooling in the 10,000 m2
building. The idea to use foundation
pipes for extracting heat or cold from
the ground originated in Switzerland
ten years ago and the first
experiments took place in Germany.
In the Netherlands, the consultancy
firm Ketel took the initiative, using
energy piles for ten houses in Gouda-
Achterwillens in 1997. Around the
same time, KODI in Heerhugowaard
installed energy piles when building
the most energy-efficient office in the
Netherlands. Since then, more than
ten other projects have followed.
Well dimensioned pile
The pipes in the pile contain a heat
carrying fluid, such as a water/glycol
mixture. In winter the relatively warm
fluid is fed to the evaporator side of a
heat pump, where it is cooled. The
4 Special Issue on the Netherlands • 2000
heat extracted from it is used to warm
the building via the central heating
system. In summer the fluid takes up
excess heat from the building, also via
the central heating system. The pipes
allow the glycol mixture to exchange
heat with the soil. In a well
dimensioned pile, the extra resistance
to heat flow due to the presence of a
concrete layer around the heat
carrying pipe is negligibly small
compared to the total heat resistance.
The rate of heat or cold extraction of a
single energy pile depends primarily
on the temperature of the heat
carrying fluid and the heat
conductivity of the soil surrounding
the pile. The higher the heat
conductivity, the easier the heat
extracted from the soil in the
immediate surroundings of the pile
can be replaced by heat flowing
inwards from layers of soil further
from the pile. A number of typical
heat extraction rates for different
types of soil are given in Table 1.
Type of soil Typical heat extraction
rate [W/m]
Sand, dry < 20
Sand, saturated 55-65
Clay, moist 30-40
Table 1. Typical heat extraction rates
(per metre of pile) for different types
of soil [VDI 1998].
Other aspects that will influence the
specific heat or cold extraction are:
• the number of equivalent peak load
hours per year;
• the rate of groundwater flow;
• the layout of the piles (determines
which will be converted to energy
piles).
Pile layout
In the course of a heating season, the
soil surrounding an energy pile will
gradually cool. As an illustration, the
radial temperature profile of the soil
surrounding a single energy pile at
different moments in the year for a
typical application is shown in
Figure 1.
As the soil surrounding a pile
gradually cools, the low soil
temperatures will also affect piles
placed in the vicinity of the first. It is
obvious that there is a certain
minimum distance that the piles
should be placed apart in order to
minimise the effect they have on each
other. This distance depends (among
other things) on the characteristics of
the soil, and ranges from 5 to
10 meters. Another variable is the
arrangement of the piles within the
pile layout. Part of the heat extracted
from the soil in winter is restocked by
sunlight heating the earth’s surface,
especially in summer. Piles at the
perimeter of a building will profit
more from this heat than piles under
the centre of the building. The
optimum arrangement of piles
depends on the characteristics of the
soil and the yearly heating and
cooling demand.

Cost-effective heat pumps
The cost of a heat pump is roughly
proportional to its size. As a rule of
thumb, for a heat pump to be
economically feasible, it should
operate for the equivalent of 3,000-
4,000 hours per year at full load. An
obvious way to reduce costs is to
reduce the size of the heat pump. This
can be achieved by having the heat
pump deliver only the base heating
demand and to cover peak loads with
a different heating device (such as an
economically more attractive boiler).
In this way, typically 70-90% of the
yearly energy demand can be covered
using the heat pump. The combination
of heat pump and boiler is generally
referred to as a bivalent system, in
contrast to the monovalent system,
where only a single type of heater is
used.
Integral building concept
A heating system using energy piles
and a heat pump is more than an add-
on to the building. It is part of an
integral heating and cooling concept
for a number of reasons. The amount
of heat (or cold) that can be extracted
from the soil is not unlimited. As we
have seen, the rate of heat extraction
depends on the characteristics of the
soil and the layout of the piles.
Furthermore, a high rate of heat
extraction will result in high heat
fluxes and generates high temperature
differences across heat resistances. As
a result, the temperature of the glycol
mixture, and thus the COP of the heat
pump, will be lower. It is therefore
essential to decrease the heating
CADDET Energy Efficiency
demand of the building as much as 12
possible by insulating the building
shell and possibly using a heat 10
recovery unit in the ventilation
Soil temperature (°C)
system. Preventing overheating
8
through passive measures (e.g.
sunshades) will lower the cooling 1 Oct
demand in summer. The heating and 6
1 Nov
cooling demand of the building
should be roughly balanced. If either 4 1 Dec
one is much larger than the other the 1 Jan
soil will gradually cool (or heat) over 2 1 Feb
the course of a few years, resulting in
1 Mar
an ever-decreasing amount of heat (or
0
cold) that can be extracted. One way 0 1 2 3 4 5
to balance a large heating demand in Distance from centre of pile (m)
winter is to use solar collectors to
inject surplus solar heat into the soil
in summer. The “efficiency” (COP) of Figure 1: Radial temperature distribution around energy
the heat pump that is used to increase pile for different moments in a year.
the temperature level of the extracted
heat is higher, the lower the raise in
temperature levels. Therefore, low
temperature-heating systems, such as
floor heating are more or less a
prerequisite.
Figure 2: Typical system schematic.
Boiler
Heat
pump
Summer: dP
Floor heating/cooling
Temperature
system
B controlled by
valve A-B
HX1 A Winter:
Valve B closed
To energy piles
Special Issue on the Netherlands • 2000 5
 CADDET Energy Efficiency

Building Floor area # Foundation # Energy Thermal power System Remarks

piles piles of heat pump
[m2] [kW]
KODI 960 65 62 2*(10..50) monovalent Modulating heat
pumps
Trend Cosmetics 1,500 135 24 15 bivalent Energy piles around
circumference only,
30 kW condensing
boiler
ZTI 850 66 66 17 bivalent 35 kW condensing
boiler
Pilkes 4,000 139 139 2*(15..70) monovalent Modulating heat
pumps
Kender Thijssen 10,000 346 150 100 bivalent
Noordersluis 1,050 80 28 17 bivalent 28 kW condensing
boiler

Table 2: Overview of different systems in monitored buildings using energy piles in the Netherlands.

Demonstration projects
Over the last few years a number of
office buildings in the Netherlands
have been equipped with energy piles.
All have an (electric) heat pump to
heat the building in winter and a heat
exchanger to cool the building in
summer (Figure 2).
The projects differ in the geometry of
their pile layout and the type of
heating concept. Some have a
monovalent system (a heat pump
only) while others have a bivalent
heating system (a heat pump for the
base load and a separate boiler for
peak loads). Most of the buildings
have been equipped with a data
acquisition system with financial
support from Novem, the Netherlands
Agency for Energy and the
Environment. This allows for
monitoring the performance of the
energy piles and the heat pump. An Novem will start a project this year
overview of the different systems is aimed at collecting and publishing
given in Table 2. information on how to design and
install energy pile heating
installations, using the results of the
Perspective ongoing projects that are currently
being monitored.
Besides being a cost-effective way to
install vertical heat exchangers, an
advantage of the energy pile concept
is that installation can be done
without special governmental
permission. This saves not only
money, but also time because the
processing of a request for permission
usually takes at least six months.
The application of a large number of
energy pile heating installations will For further information
effectively help reach the reduction please contact:
goals for greenhouse gas emissions Mr Roger Ravelli
set by the Dutch government. To Novem
arrive at this goal the knowledge of Tel.: +31-30-2393763
design and installation of such Fax: +31-30-2316491
systems has to be disseminated. E-mail: R.Ravelli@novem.nl

6 Special Issue on the Netherlands • 2000