In this study, the economic efficiency of ground source heat pump systems were analyzed by comparing with the performance of a conventional system which applied to an air-conditioner for cooling and a boiler for heating. The economic assessment was carried out by the method of life cycle cost and payback period. As a result, the operation cost of the ground source heat pump system was reduced by 18% for cooling and 50% for heating throughout the year. The ratio of life operation cost to life cycle cost increased with the increase of the system capacity. In addition, the payback period was analyzed less than 5 years when the capacity of the ground source heat pump system was more than 10 RT.

Ground source heat pumps are clean, energy-efficient and environment-friendly systems. Although the initial cost of ground source heat pump system is higher than that of air source heat pump, it is now widely accepted as an economical system since the installation cost can be returned within an short period of time due to its high efficiency. In the present study, performances of ground source compound hybrid heat pump system applied to a resort building are simulated. The system design and operation process appropriate for the surrounding circumstance guarantee the high benefit of the heat pump system applied to a resort building. If among several renewable energy sources, ground, river, sea, waste water source are chosen as available alternative energies are combined, COP of the system can be increased largely and hybrid heat pump system can reduced the fuel cost.

The objective of this paper is to assess the applicability of heat recovery at aerobic landfill as a geothermal heat source.This paper presents a case study of installing gas source heat recovery system at an aerobic landfill to collect landfillgas heat. The system consists of three subsystems, i.e., the air injection system including a biofilter, the heat pump systemand the thermal storage tank. A biofilter is necessary to remove the content of harmful compounds in the gas that entersthe heat pump. The field test results showed that temperature for landfill gas was increased slightly from 29 to 38oC inthe phase of aeration because of decomposition of organic carbon. The biofilter effectively treated CH4, H2S and NH3in the gas to prevent the corrosion of the heat pump. The coefficient of performance (COP) of the heat pump was 3.2,which means that 3.2kW of heat energy could be obtained by 1kW of electrical energy used for the heat pump. Thisstudy estimated the energy cost for the different heating systems. As a result, the heat pump can reduce the energy costby 75% compared with kerosene and diesel. Therefore, it is concluded that aerobic landfills are a suitable resource forheat recovery.