EFFECTS OF SNOW MELTING SYSTEM ON GROUND SOURCE HEAT PUMP OPERATION IN KANAZAWA CITY, ISHIKAWA PREFECTURE

Abstract

 In the heavy snowfall regions, snow-melting system is one of the important social infrastructures. In this study, we found out the impact of snow-melting system on the application of ground source heat pump (GSHP) systems, by clarifying the analyzing experimental data of the GSHP system installed at the Industrial Research Institute of Ishikawa Prefecture. Performance of the GSHP system was improving during snowfall period (reduction of power consumption by about 10%). The reason for this is because of an artificial groundwater flow that is caused by the pumping of groundwater to operate the snow-melting system. From the history matching of experimental results, apparent thermal conductivity was found to be varying. Its value was higher in snowfall period (2.1 - 2.6 W/(m･K)). Estimated apparent thermal conductivity was determined to be valid by comparing with the other data of past study. Hence, the impact of snow-melting system on the GSHP system operation was quantitatively evaluated and also the relationship between effective and apparent thermal conductivities was clarified using the field data.