Determination of optimal well locations and pumping/injection rates for groundwater heat pump system

Abstract Groundwater heat pump (GWHP) system enables to exploit additional value of groundwater as a promising renewable energy resource. This study suggested a simulation-optimization approach to find optimal installation and operation strategy for sustainable GWHP system, which aims at maximizing performance and efficiency, maintaining operational stability, complying with legal regulation on water injection, and minimizing possible costs and environmental impacts at the same time. A groundwater flow and heat transport simulation model was linked with a genetic algorithm as optimization technique and, particularly, this model can determine optimal well locations and pumping/injection rates together or apart. Assuming a hypothetical GWHP model, it was shown that the consideration of thermal recycling and value of land available for installation is important for determining optimal well configuration and resulting well distance. Results also demonstrated that simultaneous optimization of well location and flow rate can provide a better design than optimization of only well location for given flow rate. By applying the developed model to a GWHP facility in Korea, the capability of this model that can account for site-specific conditions in planning stage was proven, which must be critical to sustainable operation of GWHP system.