Application potential of ground-coupled heat pumps for multi-storey office buildings in Hong Kong

In this paper, the application potential of ground-coupled heat pumps (GCHP) in a multi-storey office building in Hong Kong was investigated.  It was found that within the limited land area occupied by the building, the GCHP could only handle the cooling load for one floor over a range of the ground thermal conductivities and undisturbed ground temperatures.  The year-round energy consumption of the GCHP was compared with those using the conventional vapour-compression chiller systems. An energy saving of at least 13.2% and 2.6% could be achieved against those using an air-cooled and a water-cooled vapour-compression chiller with rated coefficients of performance equal to 3.0 and 5.0 respectively.