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AUA-SEGT 2022 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 1074 (2022) 012001 doi:10.1088/1755-1315/1074/1/012001

A case study on long-term performance optimization of a

geothermal heating system

Guosheng Jia1, Kefeng Duan2*, Yuze Xue3, Zhendi Ma1, Jiawei Wang1 and
Zixiang Tong1*
1
School of Human Settlements and Civil Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University,
Xi’an 710049, China.
2
Xi'an Fengdong Heating Co., Ltd, Xi'an 710086, China.
3
Key Laboratory of Coal Resources Exploration and Comprehensive Utilization,
Ministry of Natural Resources, P.R. China, Xi'an 710021, China.

*E-mail: zxtong@xjtu.edu.cn; 0913yueding0116@163.com

Abstract. The optimal use of geothermal energy necessitates the performance evaluation and
economic analysis of the geothermal heating systems. This work presented a field study of the
long-term operating performance of a geothermal heating system in Xixian New Area, China.
Nine deep coaxial ground heat exchangers (GHEs) with depths of 2,500 m were adopted for
space heating to the residential buildings, with a total heating area and heating load of
136,097.71 m2 and 6,082 kW, respectively. The system’s 30-year running performance at
various volumetric flow rates and operating modes was simulated. Through response surface
analysis and multi-objective optimization, the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) and payback
period were obtained based on the thermal performance analysis. It is concluded that the
operating parameters have a significant impact on the system economy. When the daily
operating time reduces from 24 hours to 8 hours, the payback period will be lowered from
more than 25 years to approximately 11 years. When the volumetric flow rate is 35 m3·h-1, the
examined system achieves the lowest LCOE. The minimum values of LCOE are 13.2 $/GJ,
11.6 $/GJ, 9.4 $/GJ, 7.8 $/GJ and 5.6 $/GJ when the system operates 24 hours (continuous
operation), 20 hours, 16 hours, 12 hours and 8 hours a day, respectively. With the optimal flow
rate, the average heat exchange rate of the single GHE increases from 295 kW to 519 kW after
30 years of operation when the daily operating time is reduced from 20 hours to 8 hours. The
proposed method and findings can be used to guide the high-efficiency operation, which is
conducive to reducing operating costs of geothermal heating systems.

Keywords: Coaxial ground heat exchanger, Field study, Long-term performance optimization,
Economic analysis

1. Introduction
Geothermal energy has been considered as an important renewable energy in modern society [1]. The
ground heat exchangers (GHEs) are extensively employed in geothermal systems for building cooling
or heating. Compared with shallow GHEs, the deep GHEs can be used for heating with higher
performance, because they utilize the geothermal energy in the high-temperature soils and rocks in

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AUA-SEGT 2022 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 1074 (2022) 012001 doi:10.1088/1755-1315/1074/1/012001

deep strata [2, 3]. Due to this point, the deep GHE has been regarded as a superior solution for
building heating in China [5, 6].
There has been a growing concern about the performance prediction and economic analysis of
GHEs in recent years [6, 7]. Chen et al. [8] numerically evaluated the performance of a 2,600 m deep
coaxial GHEs using OpenGeoSys and discovered that the fluid outlet temperature increases by 9.45 ℃
when the ground thermal conductivity increases from 2.0 W·m-1K-1 to 3.0 W·m-1K-1 after 120 days. Hu
et al. [9] presented a numerical model in COMSOL Multiphysics to demonstrate the feasibility of
using a 3,500 m coaxial GHE in the petroleum well. The results showed that after 25 years of
operation with a 10 kg·s-1 flow rate, the outlet temperature and heat exchange rate stabilized at around
29 ℃ and 0.38 MW, respectively, indicating that the abandoned wells have a good potential for
geothermal energy exploitation. Li et al. [10] established a numerical model using FLUENT to study
the performance of a coaxial GHE in an office building in Wuhan, China. According to the findings, a
0.3 m/s to 0.4 m/s flow rate leads to better the system performance. Wang et al. [11] performed an
economic analysis of an enhanced geothermal system and found that deeper well and larger medium
circulating flow rate are beneficial to improving the thermal and economic performance. A levelized
energy cost of 0.328 $/kWh is achieved with the optimal flow rate. Liu et al. [12] analyzed and
investigated the influencing factors of various methodologies established to evaluate the GHE
performance. It was found that the heat exchange rate per depth of GHE gradually decreases over time.
It can be concluded that the coaxial GHE performance and economy are greatly affected by the
operating conditions. Therefore, by presenting a case study of the long-term operating performance of
a geothermal heating system in China, this study attempts to optimize the geothermal heating system
based on both thermal and economic analysis. The system’s thermal performance over 30 years was
simulated under various operating conditions. The economic analysis was also performed based on the
thermal performance analysis to optimize the system efficiency and improve the utilization efficiency
of geothermal energy.

2. Residential project

2.1. Project information

The investigated project is located in Xixian New Area, which is a newly-developed pilot area for
urbanization in Shaanxi, China. For environmental protection, geothermal heating technology is
commonly utilized in this area. The project is a high-grade residential building area constructed in
2020. Totally 9 deep coaxial GHEs coupled with three heat pumps supply heat to the buildings. The
total heating area and heating load are 136,097.71 m2 and 6,082 kW, respectively. The depths of the
GHEs are approximately 2,500 m. The outer pipe is a J55 steel pipe and inner pipe is a high-density
polyethylene (HDPE) pipe. The outer diameters of outer pipes at the depth of 0 – 500 m and 500 –
2,500 m are 273.0 mm and 177.8 mm, respectively. The pipe thicknesses are 10.16 mm and 9.19 mm,
respectively. The outer diameter and thickness of the inner pipe are 110.0 mm and 8.1 mm,
respectively.
The casing pipes were inserted into the boreholes to prevent them from collapsing (as shown in Fig.
1). The geological parameters were obtained through geophysical logging. The geothermal gradient is
3.31 ℃·hm-1 on average. At the bottom, the maximum ground temperature is approximately 95 ℃.

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AUA-SEGT 2022 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 1074 (2022) 012001 doi:10.1088/1755-1315/1074/1/012001

Figure 1. Casing pipes, derrick and buried pipe.

2.2. Field test results and numerical scheme validation

The test results were compared to the simulation results obtained using the fast FVM numerical
simulating methods proposed in our previous work [13, 14]. The operation starts on December 12,
2020 and ends on December 23, 2020. Table 1 contains the information about the strata at various
depths and their estimated thermal conductivities. The thermal conductivity of each stratum is
determined by averaging the thermal conductivities of all the components, in accordance with the
measured values of soils and rocks in the central Shaanxi plain by Ke et al. [15].
Table 1. Estimated thermal properties of soils and rocks at different depths.
Depth/m Thermal conductivity/W·m-1K-1 Density/kg·m-3 Specific heat/J·kg-1K-1
0 - 600 1.44 1,985 1,190
600 – 1,016 1.60 1,959 1,070
1,016 – 1,866 1.81 2,227 1,010
1,866 – 2,645 1.77 2,132 1,020

The inlet and outlet temperature were monitored and recorded from December 16 to 23. The
average volumetric flow rate was 18.4 m3·h-1. Fig. 2 illustrates the proposed numerical scheme’s
validation. It is seen that the proposed algorithm accurately predicts the outlet temperatures. No
substantial variation in the tested inlet temperature was found during operation, and it stabilized at
approximately 16.8 ℃. The examined outlet temperature revealed a clear downward trend due to the
decrease in ground temperature during the heat exchange process, demonstrating that the GHE
performance declines over time. Then the outlet temperature gradually stabilizes at approximately
33.7 ℃. Taking into account the uncertainties inherent in the experimental data, the proposed
algorithm accurately predicts the coaxial GHE performance.

Figure 2. Validation of the proposed numerical scheme.

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AUA-SEGT 2022 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 1074 (2022) 012001 doi:10.1088/1755-1315/1074/1/012001

3. Long-term performance and economic analysis

3.1. Thermal performance analysis

This section examines the performance of a single GHE as a representative model. For performance
simulations, a maximum lifetime of 30 years is considered [16, 17]. Figure 3 (a) depicts the variation
of the average heat exchange rate with elapsed time under different circulating flow rates. The annual
performance of the GHE is represented in terms of the average annual heat exchange rate. The flow
rate ranges from 10 m3·h-1 to 60 m3·h-1. It is observed that a larger flow rate is beneficial to improving
the heat exchange rate. After stabilization, the average heat exchange rate increases from
approximately 180 kW to 230 kW when the flow rate increases from 10 m3·h-1 to 15 m3·h-1. As the
flow rate further increases, the rising rate gradually decreases, particularly when the flow rate exceeds
35 m3·h-1. Thus, this flow rate can be considered ideal for the subsequent analysis.
Fig. 3 (b) illustrates the heat exchange rates with 35 m3·h-1 flow rate when the GHE daily operating
time is reduced from 24 hours to 8 hours. It is seen that the reduced daily operating time benefits the
heat exchanger performance. The heat exchange rate falls rapidly during the first 5 years before
stabilizing. After stabilization, the heat exchange rate increases from approximately 420 kW to 530
kW, when the daily operating time is reduced from 12 hours to 8 hours. With the optimal flow rate, the
average heat exchange rate of a single GHE increases from 295 kW to 519 kW after 30 years of
operation when the daily operating time is lowered from 20 hours to 8 hours.

(a) (b)
Figure 3. Variation of the heat exchange rate under different operating modes (a) different circulating
flow rate and (b) different daily operating time.

3.2. Economic analysis

It can be concluded from the above section that increasing the flow rate and decreasing the daily
operating time improves the GHE heat exchange rate. At the same time, altering operating parameters
also affects the power consumption. To evaluate the economic performance of the system, this section
presents the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) and life cycle saving (LCS) through response surface
analysis and multi-objective optimization. LCOE is an evaluation of geothermal systems based on
their life cycle time, which is defined as the life cycle cost per unit heat exchange quantity of the
geothermal system. LCS represents the annual cost savings achieved by the GHE system. In other
words, the years during which LCS < 0 can be considered as the payback period. The heating area is
determined based on the GHE thermal capability as previously calculated and the annual maintenance
cost is then evaluated according to the maintenance cost per unit area in Xi’an (approximately 1.1
dollar·m-2).
Figure 4 and 5 shows the values of LCOE and LCS for different operating modes. As illustrated in
Fig. 4, LCOE ranges from 5.4 $/GJ to 15.5 $/GJ. The increasing flow rate and reduced daily operating

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AUA-SEGT 2022 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 1074 (2022) 012001 doi:10.1088/1755-1315/1074/1/012001

time both contribute to lowering LCOE. The system has the lowest LCOE when the circulating flow
rate is 35 m3·h-1. The lowest LCOE values are 13.2 $/GJ, 11.6 $/GJ, 9.4 $/GJ, 7.8 $/GJ and 5.6 $/GJ,
when the system operates 24 hours (continuous operation), 20 hours, 16 hours, 12 hours and 8 hours a
day, respectively. At the same time, Fig. 4 demonstrates that the payback period decreases as the daily
operating time reduces. When the daily operating time is reduced from 24 hours to 8 hours, the
payback period is reduced from more than 25 years to approximately 11 years.

Figure 4. LCOE under different operating modes. Figure 5. LCS over running time.

4. Conclusions
In this paper, the long-term thermal and economic performance of a geothermal heating system in
Xixian New Area, China, was examined. Through the investigation of the influence of different
operating modes on the GHE performance, it was found that the operating parameters have a
significant impact on the thermal and economic performance of the geothermal system. The proposed
methods and findings are beneficial to guiding the high-efficiency operation and cost reduction of
geothermal heating systems. The following are the detailed conclusions.
(1) Based on the case study, a comprehensive method is established combining the numerical
simulation and multi-objective optimization approaches. Considering the initial cost, operating cost
and thermal performance, the method can be used to reasonably evaluate the long-term economic
performance of the geothermal heating system.
(2) For the GHE thermal performance, a higher circulating flow rate improves the heat exchange
rate and the increasing rate progressively decreases, particularly when the flow rate exceeds 35 m3·h-1.
After 30 years of operation at the optimal flow rate, the average heat exchange rate of a single GHE
increases from 295 kW to 519 kW when the daily operating time is reduced from 20 to 8 hours.
(3) The economic analysis based on the thermal performance indicates that when the daily
operating time is reduced from 24 hours to 8 hours, the payback period is reduced from more than 25
years to approximately 11 years.
(4) Specifically, the investigated system gets the lowest LCOE when the volumetric flow rate is 35
m3·h-1. The lowest values of LCOE are 13.2 $/GJ, 11.6 $/GJ, 9.4 $/GJ, 7.8 $/GJ and 5.6 $/GJ when the
system operates 24 hours (continuous operation), 20 hours, 16 hours, 12 hours and 8 hours a day,
respectively.

Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful for the support by the Key Laboratory of Coal Resources Exploration and
Comprehensive Utilization, Ministry of Natural Resources, China (KF2020-6, KF2021-2, ZP2020-1)
and National Key Research and Development Program (2018YFD1100201).

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AUA-SEGT 2022 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 1074 (2022) 012001 doi:10.1088/1755-1315/1074/1/012001

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