Advances in Ground Source Heat Pumps for Sustainable and Low Carbon Buildings

Dear Colleagues,

The building sector consumes about 30% of total energy, most of which is used for heating or cooling in all types of buildings in different climate zones. By making full use of thermal energy underground and the feature of underground thermal energy storage, the ground source heat pump and its related technologies are continuously contributing toward a cleaner, sustainable, low carbon, and more efficient solution for building energy demand. Entering a new era in the pursuit of carbon neutrality in all sectors, ground source heat pump technologies must meet the challenges associated with this goal and make a noticeable contribution through a new round of innovations and developments in systems, materials, and applications. In recent years, medium deep borehole heat exchangers, energy piles, underground thermal energy storage, phase change material-based ground source heat pumps, etc. have seen new advances, along with many new modeling and simulation methods, and there is plenty of exciting research taking place toward sustainable and low carbon buildings.

The original intention of this Special Issue is to explore new systems, materials, models, and applications of technologies related to ground source heat pumps that can serve as novel concepts, new designs and controls, as well as energetic, economic, environmental analyses through experiments or simulations, aiming to further promote the development of ground source heat pump techniques for building energy supply and correspondingly facilitating the goal of carbon neutrality in the building sector. Topics covered in this Special Issue include but are not limited to the following:

• Ground source heat pump systems (GSHPs);
• Medium deep borehole heat exchangers;
• GSHPs with phase change material;
• GSHPs with integrated energy systems;
• Underground thermal energy storage;
• Integration of GSHP with other renewable energies;
• GSHP with energy piles;
• Heat transfer simulation and enhancement of ground heat exchangers;
• Thermal response tests (TRT) of GSHPs;
• Hybrid GSHPs with cooling towers/solar collectors/other assistant equipment;
• Ground/surface water source heat pumps.

Dr. Yongqiang Luo
Prof. Dr. Pingfang Hu
Prof. Dr. Weibo Yang
Guest Editors

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• ground source heat pump
• borehole heat exchanger
• system design and optimization
• system control
• numerical simulation
• experimental study
• system performance analysis