What is Geothermal
Heating and Cooling
Geothermal heating and
cooling is the technology that uses the free and available heat from
the earth to provide heating and/or cooling for a home, business, industry or
industrial process.
What is a Geothermal Heat Pump?
Geothermal heat pumps,
also known as the ground source heat pumps, are highly efficient renewable
energy technologies that is gaining wide acceptance for both residential and
commercial buildings.
Geothermal heat pumps
are used for space heating and cooling, as well as water heating. Its great
advantage is that it works by concentrating naturally existing heat, rather
than by producing heat through combustion of fossil fuels.
The technology relies
on the fact that the Earth (beneath the surface) remains at a relatively
constant temperature throughout the year, warmer than the air above it during
the winter and cooler in the summer - very similar to a cave.
The geothermal heat
pump takes advantage of this by transferring heat stored in the Earth or in
ground water into a building during the winter, and transferring it out of the
building and back into the ground during the summer. The ground acts as a
"heat source" in winter and a "heat sink" in summer.
The system includes three
principal components:
● Geothermal
earth connection subsystem
● Geothermal
heat pump subsystem
● Geothermal
heat distribution subsystem.