Events

The soils, rocks and groundwaters in the shallow subsurface have long been recognised as a potential source of space heating, via the use of the ground source heat pump to extract heat from the ground.

The science of the occurrence and exploitation of shallow, low-enthalpy ground-source heat has been termed thermogeology and its fundamental concepts will be covered in this lecture. Increasingly, the value of the ground as a source of space-cooling, dehumidification and air-conditioning is also being emphasised.

The most forward-thinking European nations recognise that the problem of “heat poverty” is somewhat illusory: most urban communities possess plenty of heat – indeed they contain many large commercial and industrial complexes who find it difficult to dispose of waste heat quickly enough in the summer. The problem that many cities face is that of “plenty of heat, but at the wrong time, and in the wrong place”.

This lecture will argue that the huge volumetric heat capacity of the ground and groundwater allows significant quantities of surplus heat or “coolth” to be stored from seasons of plenty to seasons of deficit. Regions of surplus heat can also be linked to loci of heat deficit via district heating and cooling systems or, conceivably, by groundwater flow pathways. Rather than thinking of the ground as a straightforward “source” of environmentally friendly heat, we can now regard the ground as a huge heat storage unit: a thermogeological accumulator that can be coupled into urban district heating and cooling networks.

Speaker

David Banks – Director, Holymoor Consultancy Ltd and author;
“An Introduction to Thermogeology – Ground Source Cooling and Heating”

Time

Tea and coffee from 6pm. Lecture starts at 6:30pm.