Optimizing Electrical Demand for a Campus with Geothermal District Heating

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2025-01-07

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2877

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Abstract

The electrification of energy use for building heating-cooling and transportation sectors increases stress on an already strained electric power grid. Shifting energy end-use to electricity presupposes that electricity generation will have low greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. With the legacy power system and significant operational constraints on the power grid though, the majority of electricity generation will continue for many years to be predominantly powered from fossil fuel combustion. The continuing need to decrease carbon and other GHGs raises the need to find clean energy sources outside of the electric power grid. One clean energy technology for building heating and cooling is geothermal energy, a well-proven and mature technology option, especially for district heating applications. With the main energy source being clean and renewable, geothermal energy decreases direct combustion of fossil fuels, and so contributes significantly to reducing GHGs from building energy needs. With the goals of sustainability and reduced emissions, serving building heating and cooling directly with geothermal systems rather than pushing for electrification will reduce the burden on the power grid and have a high probability of decreasing pollutant emissions from building energy demands. This paper introduces a geothermal energy system for Smith College, in Northampton MA, USA, that includes geothermal heat exchangers and heat pumps. Elements of the system rely on electricity for operation. This paper investigates optimizing the time of use for electricity, as used for the heat pumps and potential thermal energy storage as well as battery storage. The proposed district heating system is designed to decrease GHG emissions and support the College goal to minimize operations costs.

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Distributed, Renewable, and Mobile Resources, battery storage, decarbonize grid, geothermal, thermal energy storage

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10

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Proceedings of the 58th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences

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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

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