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The University of Galway in Ireland is testing a geothermal heat pump system that will harvest heat from the ground to heat a pool at the University Sports Centre.
The project is part of a campus decarbonization effort that aims to reduce carbon emissions by 51 percent by 2030 and completely decarbonize the campus by 2050.
This project is a pilot project of the larger Geofit innovation project under the European Union (EU) Horizon 2020 programme, a nearly 80 billion euro research and innovation program in the transport and energy sectors from 2014 to 2020.
So far, the project’s site engineering work, which began in September on the lawn in front of the University’s Alice Perry Engineering Building, has drilled 18 holes for an underground heat pipe network that will serve as a dual-source, air-to-air heat pump system.
The pilot project will harness the heat from the ground and provide hot water to two heat pumps that will be fed through the existing underground district heating pipeline network to heat the swimming pool.
Data from the University of Galway’s Geofit project will enhance its ability to track, manage and maintain a wide range of renewable geothermal resources over the next 25 years. The findings will help the University, as well as other public buildings, determine the feasibility and scalability of ground source heat pumps and other complementary solutions such as district heating and new heat storage technologies.
According to Irish Tech News, Michael Curran, Director of Building Services, Energy and Utilities at the University of Galway, said: “This is not just about replacing boilers with heat pumps – we are going to use this pilot project as a teaching aid and research lab. It’s just more. The first step in a broad campus decarbonization plan is also being able to track a variety of performance data to make better decisions for large-scale heat pump applications.”
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