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Geothermal Conditioning : Critical Sources for Sustainability

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Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology

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Definition of the Subject

Geothermal conditioning is use of the earth’s thermal energy and storage capacity for heating, cooling, and ventilation. These types of conditioning strategies can transfer heat to the indoor environment using the ground, groundwater, or surface water – resources that are abundant and ubiquitous – to satisfy some or all of the heating load. They can also capitalize on the heat capacity and thermal inertia of the earth and its waters by transferring excess heat from indoors to outdoors, providing cooling with substantially reduced energy consumption from conventional cooling and negligible thermal impact on the outdoor environment.

Geothermal conditioning, like solar conditioning , includes passive and active strategies. Both have a long history. Passive earth sheltering has been used by plant and animal species throughout time. Active geothermal conditioning as...

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Abbreviations

Closed loop system:

A continuous, sealed, underground or submerged heat exchanger through which a heat transfer fluid passes to and returns from building conditioning equipment.

Geothermal direct use:

Use of thermal energy in the earth or earth-coupled fluid as a heat source and heat transfer reservoir for heating or cooling, without further conversion such as electric power generation.

Geothermal heat pump:

A conditioning device that uses the ground or ground-coupled fluid as the heat source and heat sink in the heat pump’s process of extracting heat from a low-temperature source and transferring it to sink at a higher temperature by adding the work of a refrigerant, usually with a vapor compression-expansion cycle.

Low-Exergy System:

Heating and/or cooling system that uses energy at a temperature close to room temperature for efficient utilization of low-grade energy sources.

Open Loop System:

A system designed to use groundwater or surface water for the purpose of extracting or rejecting heat for building conditioning.

Underground Thermal Energy Storage (UTES):

A subsurface system for storing heat and/or cold using groundwater and/or the ground in natural or constructed media.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Building Performance & Diagnostics, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA

    Dr. Nina Baird

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  1. Dr. Nina Baird
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Correspondence to Nina Baird .

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  1. RAMTECH LIMITED, Larkspur, CA, USA

    Robert A. Meyers

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Baird, N. (2012). Geothermal Conditioning : Critical Sources for Sustainability. In: Meyers, R.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0851-3_422

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