Geothermal heat pumps

Abstract

Currently, geothermal heat pumps (GHPs) represent the fastest growing branch in the utilization of geothermal energy. There are various factors that can lead to the successful dissemination of the GHP technology. Promoting factors are manifold: technical, economic, environmental awareness, governmental support, etc. The most important driving force is simply knowledge and know-how. Besides, various applications and wide-scale realizations, high-level quality assurance and successful demonstration facilities are needed. The use of GHP systems represents an important contribution of renewable energies to the mitigation of climatic warming: the increasing use of the environmentally friendly geothermal technology enables the saving of great amounts of fossil fuels, avoid corresponding CO2 emissions and, in the case of the application of GHP systems in building renovation, it results in a significant emission reduction. It can be expected that GHP systems, along with other geothermal technologies (especially for power generation), will further increase the benefits to future generations.