Groundwater Thermal-Effective Injection Systems in Shallow Aquifers

The growing use of groundwater heat pumps for heating and cooling buildings could potentially cause, even in the short term, a significant environmental impact associated to the thermal interference with groundwater. The discharge of water at different temperatures, compared to undisturbed temperature (hotter in summer and colder in winter), poses some potential problems regarding the functionality of many possible uses of existing groundwater. Also, there may be cases of interference between systems, especially in more densely urbanized areas. The study has the following objectives: 1) assess the potential impact of heat pumps to ground water as a function of the characteristics of site, user, wells, and the installed machine. Different approaches will be used, as numerical simulations with specific codes (FEFLOW). 2) Validate numerical models by comparison with experimental data from real facilities: open-loop and closed-loop heat pumps already installed on the Piedmont territory. 3) Propose and examine innovative engineering solutions for water withdrawal and re-injection (in the case of open loop systems) and management systems that can significantly help reducing the impact in the ground and performance degradation of other installations. 4) Develop a tool for energy planning at the urban level. In the optimization, the installation of groundwater heat pumps will be considered as in competition with alternative systems, such as district heating and cooling.