Simulation Analysis on the Heat Performance of Deep Borehole Heat Exchangers in Medium-Depth Geothermal Heat Pump Systems

Abstract

Deep borehole heat exchangers (DBHEs) extract heat from the medium-depth geothermal energy with the depth of 2–3 km and provide high-temperature heat source for the medium-depth geothermal heat pump systems (MD-GHPs). This paper focuses on the heat transfer performance of DBHEs, where field tests and simulation are conducted to analyze the heat transfer process and the influence factors. Results identify that the heat transfer performance is greatly influenced by geothermal properties of the ground, thermal properties and depth of DBHEs and operation parameters, which could be classified into external factors, internal factors and synergic adjustment. In addition, the long-term operation effects are analyzed with the simulation, results show that with inlet water temperature setting at 20 °C and flow rate setting at 6.0 kg/s, the average outlet water temperature only drops 0.99 °C and the average heat extraction drops 9.5% after 20-years operation. Therefore, it demonstrates that the medium-depth geothermal energy can serve as the high-temperature heat source for heat pump systems stably and reliably. The results from this study can be potentially used to guide the system design and optimization of DBHEs.