Modelling the Interaction of Multiple Borehole Heat Exchangers in Shallow Geothermal Fields

The utilization of Borehole Heat Exchanger (BHE) to transfer heat from the shallow subsurface has been a common practice for the Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) system. To represent realistic application scenarios for numerical simulations of such systems, saturated and unsaturated conditions as well as heterogeneous soil properties have to be considered. Analytical solutions such as the Moving Finite Line Source (MFLS) model are not flexible enough to capture the full dynamics of the system. Furthermore, application examples with a high density of installed BHEs exist. There, temperature plumes produced by the individual BHEs may start to interact with each other and lead to lower thermal output.

To simulate this interaction, a dual continuum approach has been implemented into the open-source FEM simulator OpenGeoSys (OGS). The model is capable of simulating the temperature evolution around the BHE, with the consideration of both saturated and unsaturated groundwater flow processes in the surrounding soil. Instead of imposing Dirichlet or Neumann type of boundary condition at the location of a BHE, the newly developed model allows the user to specify inflow refrigerant temperature and flow rate as the driving force of heat transport. In a benchmark with homogeneous soil properties and fully saturated condition, temperature evolution predicted by the numerical model has been verified against MFLS analytical solution. In a second benchmark, the model simulated outflow temperature is validated by comparing to field measured data from a Thermal Response Test (TRT), provided by the Korean Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM) in Dajeon, South Korea.

After simulating several shallow geothermal scenarios of multiple BHEs operating in close vicinity, we find that the super-imposed MFLS based analytical solution predicts similar temperature distribution, provided the heat extraction from each BHE is relatively low. However, when the heat exchange rate is rather high, as in an aquifer thermal storage scenario, the super-imposed analytical solution cannot predict the fluctuated outflow temperature of the influenced BHE. Therefore in this case it is not applicable. Subsequently, the presented numerical model will be applied to real shallow geothermal site.