"Experiment, Modelling and Simulation of High-Temperature Ground Thermal Storage Systems"

能源效率和节能的关键技术是热能储存系统。它通常有助于减少系统中热能需求和供应之间的不匹配，并提高系统的效率。因此，在建筑物、后院或前院下随时可用的地面热能储存可以在未来应对气候变化、减少化石燃料消耗和增加可再生能源利用方面发挥重要作用。该技术还可以通过区域供暖系统扩展到社区，就像阿尔伯塔奥科托克斯独一无二的德雷克登陆太阳能社区的情况一样。自2007年以来，通过从高温（高达80°C）地面热能储存器中获取夏季储存的太阳能，52所房屋80%的住宅空间供暖需求得到了满足。相当于减少约72吉焦的热能（或1920立方米的天然气）和3.6吨温室气体排放量，每个家庭，每年。为了在加拿大或世界范围内广泛使用这种技术，需要一种可靠的工具来以最节能和最具成本效益的方式模拟和设计优化的系统。该研究将开发出一种可靠、功能强大的计算机软件工具。该软件程序将能够模拟地面中耦合的热和水运动的复杂性质，使得可以实现地面热能存储系统的适当尺寸-也就是说，它将能够匹配需求（例如，建筑物的加热）和供应（例如，来自太阳能收集器的太阳能）在30至50年或更长的典型使用寿命内的热能。为了实现这一目标，需要进行实验和建模工作，以验证土壤中的热量和水分运动耦合理论、土壤导热性和地下热交换器或建立模型。一旦开发和验证，所有的模型将被实施到一个计算机程序中，用于模拟地下热交换器系统和地面之间的热交换。该软件应该能够预测和补救任何潜在的问题，如干燥的地面，这将降低系统的热性能。

A key technology in energy efficiency and conservation is a thermal energy storage system. It often helps to reduce the mismatch between demand and supply of thermal energy in a system and improves the system's efficiency. Thus, a ground thermal energy store, readily available under a building, backyard or front yard, can play an important role in the future to combat climate change, reduce fossil fuel consumption, and increase renewable energy utilization. The technology can also be extended to communities through district heating systems, as is the case at the one-of-a-kind Drake Landing Solar Community in Okotoks, Alberta. Here, since 2007 80% of residential space heating needs for 52 houses have been met by retrieving solar energy stored during the summer season from a high-temperature (up to 80°C) ground thermal energy store. The equivalent reduction is approximately 72 GJ of heating energy (or 1920 m3 of natural gas) and 3.6 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per home, per year. In order to widely use such technology in Canada or the world, a reliable tool is required to simulate and design an optimized system in the most energy- and cost-efficient way. The proposed research will develop such a reliable, powerful computer software tool. The software program will have the capability to simulate the complex nature of coupled heat and water movement in the ground, such that an appropriate sizing of a ground thermal energy storage system can be achieved - that is, it will be able to match the demand (e.g., heating for buildings) and supply (e.g., solar energy from solar collectors) of thermal energy over a typical service life of 30 to 50 years or longer. To meet this objective, experiment and modelling work will be required to validate or model the theory of coupled heat and moisture movement in soils, soil thermal conductivity and ground heat exchangers. Once developed and validated, all the models will be implemented into a computer program for modelling the heat exchange between a ground heat exchanger system and the ground. The software should be able to predict and remedy any potential problems, such as dry out of ground, which would degrade the thermal performance of the system.