The purpose of this paper is to provide a source of information on thermal energy use in buildings, its drivers, and their past, present and future trends on a global and regional basis. Energy use in buildings forms a large part of global and regional energy demand. The importance of heating and cooling in total building energy use is very diverse with this share varying between 18% and 73%. Biomass is still far the dominant fuel when a global picture is considered; the role of electricity is substantially growing, and the direct use of coal is disappearing from this sector, largely replaced by electricity and natural gas in the most developed regions. This paper identifies the different drivers of heating and cooling energy demand, and decomposes this energy demand into key drivers based on a Kaya identity approach: number of households, persons per household, floor space per capita and specific energy consumption for residential heating and cooling; and GDP, floor space per GDP, and specific energy consumption for commercial buildings. This paper also reviews the trends in the development of these drivers for the present, future – and for which data were available, for the past – in 11 world regions as well as globally. Results show that in a business-as-usual scenario, total residential heating and cooling energy use is expected to more or less stagnate, or slightly decrease, in the developed parts of the world. In contrast, commercial heating and cooling energy use will grow in each world region. Finally, the results show that per capita total final residential building energy use has been stagnating in the vast majority of world regions for the past three decades, despite the very significant increases in energy service levels in each of these regions.

Heating and cooling energy trends and drivers in buildings

Performance of ground heat exchangers: A comprehensive review of recent advances

Geothermal Energy (GE) is a non-carbon renewable source of sustainable energy with untapped potential for mitigating the threat of climate change. To achieve a sustainable pathway for development, evaluation of technical and economic constraints must be addressed within a framework of environmental governance and social and legal challenges that arise during implementing of geothermal projects. Key barriers to deployment of geothermal resources on a wide scale include high capital costs, location and quality of resource at different depths and opposition by local communities. Here we provide a detailed review of the barriers, identify credible solutions and highlight options for enhancing geothermal capacity and energy production on a global scale required to meet ‘net-zero’ carbon emission targets. Globally by 2050 as part of a strategy to reduce greenhouse gases. This study is a valid source for upcoming studies and implementations by analyzing the influential factors on the development and future of geothermal energy.

Environmental, economic, and social impacts of geothermal energy systems

Economic analysis of vertical ground source heat pump systems in Melbourne

https://escholarship.org/content/qt60q7n0h5/qt60q7n0h5.pdf?t=q56ilx

Energy geostructures: A review of analysis approaches, in situ testing and model scale experiments

Comparative costs of ground source heat pump systems against other forms of heating and cooling for different climatic conditions

Ground source heat pump (GSHP) systems have the potential to reduce the carbon dioxide footprint of buildings by providing them with sustainable heating and cooling energy from the ground at shallo...

Uncertainties in the design of ground heat exchangers

The ground at shallow depths can be used as a source of sustainable thermal energy for heating and cooling buildings. Utilisation of this energy reduces the amount of fossil fuel required to maintain comfortable temperatures inside buildings and can significantly reduce the operating costs of heating and air-conditioning. A Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) system is a technology that extracts geothermal energy from shallow depths and transfers it to buildings. Currently, installation costs of these systems are relatively high and this can prevent potential users from investing in these systems. Ground heat exchangers (GHEs) are the least researched and the most expensive elements of GSHP systems. Hence, further research into the performance of GHEs is needed to develop a sound basis for their optimum design and, ultimately, to reduce lengths of GHEs and decrease installation costs of the GSHP systems. A new two storey school building of about 1500m 2 floor area in Melbourne, Australia was fitted with a GSHP system as part of a research and demonstration project funded by the Department of State Development, Business and Innovation (DSDBI). Twenty eight 50-metre deep borehole GHEs were installed to provide heating and cooling energy for the school and the building is being used as a full-scale experiment to study the behaviour of GHEs under real-life thermal loads. Nine of the GHEs were extensively instrumented to monitor their thermal performance. Also, eight additional monitoring boreholes were installed to study thermal influence of GHEs on the adjacent ground. The experiment will allow a better understanding of thermal processes in the ground when thermal energy is injected and extracted to/from it. This paper presents some of the initial data obtained from this unique project.

Performance of Borehole Ground Heat Exchangers under Thermal Loads from a School Building: Full-scale Experiment in Melbourne, Australia

/pdf/financial-assessment-of-ground-source-heat-pump-systems-373ccj099v.pdf

Olga Mikhaylova

Papers

Comparative costs of ground source heat pump systems against other forms of heating and cooling for different climatic conditions

Uncertainties in the design of ground heat exchangers

Performance of Borehole Ground Heat Exchangers under Thermal Loads from a School Building: Full-scale Experiment in Melbourne, Australia

Financial assessment of ground source heat pump systems against other selected heating and cooling systems for Australian conditions

Geothermal Energy: Introducing an Emerging Technology