Computer-aided design and evaluation of ground source heat pump systems for Macao

Because of energy saving, ground-source heat pump systems installations have grown on a global basis (estimates range from 10 to 30% annually). A pseudo building with construction area equals to 10,000 ft 2 (500 × 200), a typical cooling load of 540,000 Btu/h and heating load of 160,000 Btu/h is used to design the ground-source heat pump system using the local soil conditions and to determine the borehole heat exchanger length. The total length of the borehole is one of the major indications of the effectiveness of the system. A simulation package called GLHEPRO using the numerical model recommended by Eskilson (1987) , and a simple heat pump model is used for simulation purposes. The simulation results showed that the total borehole length is 10,125.75 ft. A 60 boreholes grid configuration with the depth for each borehole equal to 169 ft is selected. Since the design single borehole depth is very reasonable, system implementation can be achieved in engineering point of view.