Geothermal Energy Still Far From Widespread Utilization in China

Liu Yuanyuan, Contributor
December 06, 2011 | 11 Comments

Shallow geothermal energy is a form of thermal energy that is available in underground soil and groundwater. Compared to other sources of energy, geothermal energy from shallow ground is an abundant and recycled energy resource with wide geographic distribution. Ground source heat pump technology makes development and utilization of shallow geothermal energy possible.

China is starting to focus on development and utilization of geothermal energy. In Shandong province, it is estimated that shallow geothermal energy resources within the first 200 meters (approx. 600 feet) beneath the surface is equivalent to 131 million tons of standard coal each year, or approximately 40 percent of the province's coal reserves. The potential value of these resources is more than 6.5 trillion yuan (approx. US$1 trillion).

Prospects for ground source heat pumps become more promising as China plans to ramp up its efforts to reduce both emissions and energy use as part of its five year plan for 2011 to 2015, according to industry insiders. The market for development and utilization of geothermal energy will grow to approximately 100 billion yuan (approx. US$15 billion) over the next five years, according to Yuan Funing, a spokesperson for Yateer, a Shandong province-based maanufacturer of ground source heat pumps. Sales of the pumps already exceed 8 billion yuan in China and is growing 20 percent annually. Initial installment fees for the pumps have also decreased significantly, further paving the way for utilization of shallow geothermal energy across the country.

However, wide-spread utilization of shallow geothermal energy is still some distance away due to several issues with pump technology, including an unregulated market and unified standards as well as difficulties associated with maintenance and repair of the units. Due to a low market threshold, a large number of non-professional manufacturers in China have entered the market, resulting in a vicious price war. Geothermal integrators and builders with mixed levels of expertise often face high operating costs and constructing units with weak heating or cooling results. Chinese pump makers have not mastered the core technologies of the pumps and are overly reliant on imports for key parts of the heat pump units. In addition, China has lagged far behind other countries in terms of geothermal power generation.

It is now up to the Chinese government to create favorable policies to support and boost the development of geothermal energy nationwide.

11 Comments

Ron Tolmie
December 14, 2011

Angus. For seasonal storage of heat in the ground you need to use multiple boreholes to trap the heat. However, blocks of homeowners could cooperate so that each home would need only one or two boreholes that work together with the neighbours' boreholes to trap the heat. In Canada our heating demand is much larger than our cooling demand so homes need to make up the difference using heat extracted from the summer air (Atmospheric Energy systems).

Ron Tolmie
December 14, 2011

Storage makes it possible to utilize energy that is presently just being wasted. The potential scale is enormous. The annual waste heat from a large shopping mall is sufficient to heat thousands of homes, using either directly connected piping or independent home heating systems that pick up the energy via heat flow in the ground. The source of energy can be the heat from AC systems, heat from ice rinks (as is used in Gibsons BC to heat 133 homes), or heat (or cold) from the air, as is used in the Enwave system and in Atmospheric Energy systems. Storage is also used for solar energy systems like the Drake Landing system (52 homes). On a life cycle basis such systems tend to be cheaper than fossil fuelled systems and they can be invisible, silent, permanently sustainable and non polluting.

Angus Campbell
December 14, 2011

Ron:
I'm wondering if it is fesible to use a simgle piping system for multiple houses to reduce the cost. I am thinking of a 8" vertical pipe down about 200 feet to access the near ground heat and in which several houses are connected. This would reduce the costs for drilling and could be encorporated into new subdivisions.

Ken Chan
December 12, 2011

Hi Gary,
Could you kindly share thisMonster mansion Ground source heat system and also that article by Howe Institute. Thanks.

Gary McCallum
December 12, 2011

Using geothermal for heat storage to double the efficiency is one way to reduce costs for large structures. Building a smaller structure to the passive house standard could eliminate the system completly while using less electricity for suplemental heat.
I have built monster McMansions with $170,000 ground source heat sustems that could be reduced to less than 1/5 the cost with better insulation standards.
Simplicity and efficiency is the best way to save money and reduce green house gasses.
Read Going Green for Less put out by the C D Howe institute. An inspiring informative short read

Ken Chan
December 10, 2011

Ron,
Thanks again for the information on Enwave.
I shall look up their website.
Regards.
Ken

Ron Tolmie
December 10, 2011

Ken. I forgot to mention the Enwave system that uses seasonal storage to cool nearly 100 very large buildings in Toronto. In large buildings the need is to get rid of energy, not to find ways to deliver yet more energy to them. The current practice of using natural gas for heating and inefficient air-sink AC for cooling is absurd. If you employ heat storage the heat from a large building could heat about 1000 homes as well as the large building itself, and cooling would use much less energy. The Enwave system uses lake water for seasonal storage. Using the ground instead of water is more widely applicable and is much more flexible. However, the use of heat storage is being generally ignored in spite of the existence of some large seasonal storage systems that have been working well for many years.

Ken Chan
December 9, 2011

Ron. Thank you for your kind response and information. It is very much appreciated. Regards. Ken

Ron Tolmie
December 9, 2011

Ken Chan. There are examples ranging from a single home in Kingston Ontario to a 415,000 sq. ft. IKEA that use seasonal storage to eliminate the use of fossil fuels for heating and to reduce the power demand. The campus of UOIT in Oshawa has used the concept for almost a decade and the university staff have documented some of the principles in "Thermal Energy Storage - Systems and Applications (Dincer and Rosen, Wiley). There is a town in BC that is implementing a variant as a municipal service. In Canada about half of our electricity is hydro power so it would be relatively easy for us to completely eliminate the use of fossil fuels for both heating and power generation (and save money in the process) if our governments had the political will to do so. If you have specific questions you can contact me at Ron@Tolmie.ca

Ken Chan
December 9, 2011

Ron Tolmie: Thats a great comment and observation. I believe that from articles I had read. Do you know of such reliable technologies, and would you kindly contact me if you happen to read this message. Thanks: My email is : kenchan@globalgreenpartnerships.com

Ron Tolmie
December 9, 2011

The available energy is approximately doubled if you design the ground heat exchangers to store the summer heat from the buildings, and it is increased by an even larger factor if you transfer heat from the summer air directly into the ground store. That also reduces the cost of the ground system (because it stores a lot more energy in a given volume) and the operating cost (because the heat pump COP is much higher).

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Liu Yuanyuan

Nanjing Shanglong Communications Liu Yuanyuan is Director of Operations and Co-Founder of Nanjing Shanglong Communications. Liu Yuanyuan previously held the position of office manager at the London Financial Times' China translation and...