Application of Lake and Surface Water Heat Exchanger Simulations for Energy Calculations and Determination of Design Temperatures and Constraints

Abstract

Surface water heat pump (SWHP) systems, are essentially a combination of heat pump and a system for exchanging heat with a surface water body. SWHP systems utilize a nearby surface water body e.g. lakes, ponds, or rivers as a heat source and/or heat sink for one or more heat pumps providing building heating and/or cooling. Despite growing interest in SWHP systems, there is a paucity of standard design data and procedures to aid engineers to efficiently design and analyze the system. This thesis work aims to develop the robust stand-alone FORTRAN lake model coupled with surface water heat exchanger model and implement that in the EnergyPlus program, which can serve as a basis for energy calculations. In addition, the meteorological-data-and-model-driven approach is investigated to develop an easy-to-use database of design temperatures for surface water bodies across United States. This approach uses the developed stand-alone FORTRAN lake model to predict the design temperatures from typical meteorological weather data. Furthermore, the design guidelines are developed which recommends the maximum capacity of the lakes for acceptable SWHP system performance. The detailed study tell us how much of heat can be rejected or extracted from a lake without affecting the lake design temperatures.