Environmental and energy performance assessment of hybrid ground source heat pump coupled with TABS emission system in the EU non-residential building typologies

Abstract

Hybrid Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) coupled with radiant emission system is a storage-integrated renewable HVAC technology. Previous attempts that assessed the potential of such a system either employed steady-state estimates or were limited to a few cases. However, incorporating system and building dynamics is crucial to accurately estimate the GSHP's share in the total final energy delivered to the building, hence its energy performance. This paper assesses the environmental and energy performance of the system in non-residential building typologies in the EU. It provides a robust quantification of its potential in the building sector's clean energy transition. We developed an automated method employing dynamic models to estimate building thermal loads. Parametric archetypes were developed to represent the diverse characteristics of the EU non-residential building stock. The analysis of 94,000 cases showed that the storage-integrated hybrid GSHP system covers more than 50% of the annual energy demand in 55% of the cases. The system reduced annual median primary energy and CO2 emissions by half compared to conventional systems, reaching 25 kWh/(m2.a) and 5 kgCO2/(m2.a), respectively. These results suggest that a significant reduction in CO2 emissions is achievable by implementing storage-integrated hybrid GSHP in the EU non-residential buildings.