Welcome to the ninth part of the course ‘Design borefields with confidence’.
Summary of part 8
In the eighth part of the course, the focus was on the design of larger geothermal systems, either a cluster of multiple individual systems or a larger collective geothermal project.
In Part 8.1, the advantages and disadvantages were discussed of a completely individual system (where each unit has its own heat pump and geothermal source), a completely collective system (with a centralised heat pump and borefield) and an intermediate solution of a centralised borefield with individual heat pumps.
In Part 8.2, the problem of interference occurring between multiple individual geothermal systems was discussed, both for a larger project with three larger individual borefields and for a newly built neighbourhood with 20 houses. Interference indeed led to an increased required borefield size.
In Part 8.3, the concept of simultaneity was discussed. When multiple users are connected to the same geothermal source, one can assume that their heating and cooling do not occur simultaneously, leading to an overall lower peak power on the ground. This changes the borefield design for the better and is one of the main advantages of collective geothermal systems.
Content of part 9
In this ninth part, we once again broaden our scope, talking not only about the borefield design as such but also about the design of hybrid geothermal systems.
In the first chapter, the concept of hybrid systems will be explained together with the concept of geothermal potential. Based on this concept of geothermal potential, different optimisation strategies to design a hybrid geothermal system will be introduced. These three methods, optimising for maximum power, maximum energy or maximum balance, are discussed in chapters 2 to 4.
In the last chapter of this course, another way of looking at the design of hybrid systems is discussed, where the focus is on the simulation of these systems instead of optimising them.