Performance Assessment of Ground Source Heat Pumps to Offset Domestic Energy Consumption in Pakistan

This paper presents an experimental based performance evaluation of ground source heat pumps (GSHP) to offset domestic energy consumption in Pakistan. Global population growth and rising energy consumption drove up demand for fossil fuels, adding to pollution and hastening the effects of climate change. A clean, renewable, durable, and cost-effective technology is GSHPs, which could help ease the burden of energy-intensive industries like residential cooling and heating. But due to the lack of performance characteristics of GSHP, resulting in less people opting for its installation and usage in homes. The performance assessment of GSHP system is carried out to provide financial sustainability of using this technology for heating and cooling in homes. It will also enable the readers to know the price range of this system and hence, better prepare them to take more informed decisions in the use of energy conservation and the quest for alternative/renewable energy means. The results show that by installing GSHP system, reduced excavation/backfilling, materials and other component ((like pump, radiator, water tank) costs that contributed 50%, 20% and 30% of the total costs of the system respectively. It is also noted that that GSHP system (1500ft of pipe length, placed at shallowest depth of 15ft) took 2.16 years while the system (placed at 15ft depth and having heat exchanger length of 1000ft) took 0.64 years to return its cost. If the GSHP system is insulated efficiently it can produce 3 to 4.5 time’s electrical energy that can serve for heating multiple homes. Based on these results, it can be concluded that GSHP system can be considered a viable solution to offset domestic energy consumption in Pakistan.