Seasonal heat storage below ground - uses summer solar heat to provide winter heating stored in pipework in sand mass

摘要

The underground heating store consists of an inner hot circuit and a peripheral cool circuit which provides a screen for, and reduces the losses from the inner circuit. The heat to these circuits is provided by solar panels in the summer and a stock of heat is built up underground to be reclaimed in the winter with the aid of a heat pump. The buried pipe network is buried in a mass of material which is "fluid" and has a high conductivity, such as sand. The sand bed (5) will be in direct contact with the ground and be covered with insulation (58).