Effect of Climate Change on Shallow Geothermal Energy Utilization

Abstract:

Climate change resulting from the increase of greenhouse gases became a global agenda, also it is an important issue in our daily life in many aspects. It was reported that the average ambient temperature of Korea has been increased by about 1.5℃ for the last 100 years. This pattern of climate change will also influence on the shallow geothermal energy utilization for space heating and cooling.

In this study, degree days concept was used to estimate the heat demand according to the outside temperature variation. The calculated degree days were compared to the electricity consumption of ground source heat pump (GSHP) system in the study area. The results showed that there is a high correlation between the electricity consumption and degree days.

Based upon such relationship, heating and cooling degree days were calculated using the future weather files from Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios. RCPs mean four greenhouse gas concentration trajectories adopted by the IPCC for its fifth Assessment Report (AR5). Therefore, the resulted degree days will show the variations in heating and cooling demand and their durations according to the future anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Keywords : Climate Change, Geothermal Energy, Degree Days, Heat Demand