Heating performance of a ground source heat pump system installed in a school building

The heating performance of a water-to-refrigerant type ground source heat pump system is represented in this paper under the actual working conditions of the GSHP (ground source heat pump) system during the winter season of 2008. Ten heat pump equipments with the capacity of 10 HP each and a closed vertical typed-ground heat exchanger with 24 boreholes of 175 m in depth were constructed. We investigated a variety of working conditions, including the outdoor temperature, the ground temperature, and the water temperature of inlet and outlet of the ground heat exchanger in order to examine the heating performance of the GSHP system. Subsequently, the heating capacity and the input power were investigated to determine the heating performance of the GSHP system. The average heating coefficient of performance (COP) of the heat pump was noted to be 5.1 at partial load of 47%, while the overall system COP was found to be 4.2. Also, performance of the GSHP system was compared with that of air source heat pump.