Techno-economic Assessment of a Geothermal Energy System for a Single Family House

Abstract

This thesis examines installation of a geothermal energy system as an alternative sustainable solution. The thesis is divided in two parts: the first part studies the feasibility of the installation of a geothermal energy system regarding the technical specifications. The second part determines the profitability of the system. The system is meant to cover the hot tap water demand of a single family house. Geothermal properties of the area, power consumption of the house, technical specifications of the components forming the system are the parameters that make up the basis for the final solution. Furthermore, an economic assessment is performed in the second part, taking into account the costs, loans, increment of prices and payback times. The results indicated that, if only hot tap water is provided with geothermal energy, the system will not be economically profitable due to a payback time of about 22 years. If also space heating was provided with geothermal energy, the payback time decreases to 2 years. Therefore, retrofitting the existing diesel based system with a geothermal energy one might be a very attractive solution if the heat demand is sufficiently large and carefully assessed.