What is a Geothermal Heat Pump?
A geothermal heat pump is a central heating and/or cooling system that adds or removes heat to or from the ground to cool in the summer or heat in the winter. Geothermal heat pumps collect heat absorbed at the Earth’s surface from solar energy.
How does a Geothermal system work?
A geothermal system operates very much like a refrigerator in a kitchen. In fact, the cycle the system undergoes is called the refrigeration cycle. There are four major components to the refrigeration cycle:
- Evaporation
- Compression
- Condensation
- Expansion
Depending on the direction the refrigerant is flowing determines whether the system will be heating or cooling. The refrigeration cycle displayed on the left is in heating mode. Here it can be seen that heat is being added to the refrigerant by the source media, thus evaporation the refrigerant. Then the warmer vaporized refrigerant enters the compressor in stage 2 and the pressure and temperature both increase. From there the refrigerant adds heat to the load media thus condensing the refrigerant vapor to a lower temperature high-pressure liquid. This liquid refrigerant is then passed through a thermal expansion valve, dropping both the temperature and pressure of the liquid refrigerant. As long as the compressor is operating the refrigerant is continually flowing through the cycle.
How is heating & cooling achieved in the same system?
The compressor can only operate in one direction, unlike the thermal expansion valve, therefore the reversing valve a key component that allows for both heating and cooling in the same system.
What are the different types Geothermal loops?
What are the benefits of Geothermal?
Other thank feeling great that you have reduced your carbon footprint by no longer burning fossil fuels to heat your home or business, there are many other benefits to switching to geothermal, such as:
- Geothermal heat pumps maintain their efficiency, unlike ordinary heat pumps, in more extreme temperature.
- They can return up to $5.00 of heat for every $1.00 spent on electricity
- Typical homeowner’s energy bill has around 2/3’s of the cost due to heating, cooling, and hot water. Therefore, increasing the efficiency of your heating and cooling system results in large saving
- There is also a 30% rebate for the entire system installation cost
Cooling Comparison Geotheraml vs. DX Air Conditioning
Heating 1,000,000 BTU Breakdown of Geothermal vs. Oil vs. Propane
