Using the Earth’s Natural Potential for Heating a Building

It is known the fact that buildings become one of the major energy consumers. In order to ensure thermal comfort in buildings, more and more complex heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems have been used over time, which are currently large primary energy consumers. At the same time, today, the main source of energy production is still the burning of fossil fuels, which is the process leading to significant emissions of greenhouse gases. That is why the current European Union directives enforce both reducing buildings energy consumption with 20% before 2020 and using an amount of 20% of renewable energy. One of the heating systems that best respond to the need to reduce the energy consumption of buildings is the low-temperature radiant heating system., This is the reason why the present paper presents a research project that concerns the use of TABS heating/cooling systems that harness the renewable geothermal energy of the ground provided by a ground-air heat pump in Romania. The experimental research building is one of the research laboratories of the Research, Development, Innovation Institut of Transilvania University of Brasov-Romania In the first cold season of activity for heating the experimental building (2017-2018), the system provided a thermal enegy of 48 MWh, covering 48 % from the amount of the heating load. During the monitored period, the average COP for heating of the heat pump was 4,6. The research will continue to take place, results regarding the economy for cooling the building in the warm season and for the year’s transition periods being expected to follow.