| Title |
Optimal Building Envelope Design Strategies for Minimizing Ground Heat Exchanger Capacity and Addressing Limitations of Peak Load Reduction |
| Authors |
김이레(Kim, I-Re) ; 백승효(Baek, Seung-Hyo) |
| DOI |
https://doi.org/10.5659/JAIK.2026.42.4.313 |
| Keywords |
Ground Heat Exchanger; Ground-Source Heat Pump; Building Envelope Design; Parametric Study |
| Abstract |
This study evaluates whether the traditional heating and cooling system design approach, based on peak load, accurately estimates the
capacity of a ground heat exchanger (GHE). It also analyzes how variations in building envelope design affect GHE length. A parametric
study was conducted on a medium office building, using a Python-based tool to calculate heating and cooling loads and GHE lengths for
243 different building envelope combinations. Results showed that Case 243, with the lowest peak cooling load of 30.42 kW, required a
GHE length of 541.01 m. Meanwhile, Case 224 had a higher peak cooling load of 32.83 kW but a shorter GHE length of 522.25 m. Case
224 also demonstrated a 32.5 percent reduction in annual cooling load and an increase in annual heating load compared to Case 243. These
findings suggest that GHE length depends not only on peak load but also on the magnitude and balance of annual heating and cooling loads.
Further analysis of the top 10 percent of cases revealed that building envelope designs optimized to reduce peak cooling load differ from
those that minimize GHE length. For cooling-dominated medium office buildings, strategies focusing only on reducing peak load may not
effectively reduce GHE capacity. A building envelope design that considers the balance of annual heating and cooling loads is needed to
optimize GHE length. |