One is toasty warm, thanks

The Australian ^ | 23 August 2005

[Aussie Dasher]

QUEEN Elizabeth II is planning to create an underground network to extract heat from the earth's natural warmth and cut energy bills at Buckingham Palace for centuries to come.

She has inspired a fashion among the super-rich for drilling boreholes at their properties as the latest "green" status symbol. Advocates include pop star Elton John, tycoon Richard Branson and billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

The Buckingham Palace system will provide a secure, free and inexhaustible energy supply from beneath the surface of the 1.6ha lake at the heart of the walled gardens. It will pump heating to the state rooms, the formal area of the palace.

Water containing a refrigerant chemical is circulated through a loop of pipework running through the lake bed and into the groundwater feeding it. The slow journey through the coils allows the liquid to absorb the surrounding heat at a constant 12C.

The Queen ordered a small trial in 2002 that drilled 122m into the chalk aquifer beneath the palace grounds to run an eco-friendly airconditioning system for a new art gallery, built at Buckingham Palace to mark her golden jubilee. The results were apparently so impressive that she is ready to take the bold step of using a new underground heating system to replace conventional sources for part of the palace.

The water-refrigerant combination that has absorbed the heat from the ground passes back up the pipe and into the palace where it goes through a compressor that "concentrates" the latent energy, raising the temperature of the liquid to 55C-60C. It then passes through metal plates in contact with water that is used for the taps, radiators and underfloor heating.

The liquid can also be decompressed so that instead of generating heat, it can provide cool air for airconditioning. The venture is the most radical among a wide range of environmentally conscious schemes adopted by the royal household in recent years.

The Queen's state cars have been switched to liquid petroleum gas, as has the taxi used by Prince Philip to drive anonymously around London.

The Buckingham Palace scheme will cost up to pound stg. 50,000 ($120,000), but is expected to pay for itself in three to seven years. It could then provide free heat energy for a century with almost no maintenance.

[Aussie Dasher]

Now the bloody Queen's gone green!!!!

What's to become of us...?

[Ruth A.]

The Queen is probably doing it for cost efficiency, but the reporter has his own agenda.

I wonder how many years it will be until they tell us how this is damaging the ecosystem.

[GSlob]

"Now the bloody Queen's gone green!!!! What's to become of us...?"
You can do her one better and start photosynthesis. Then you'd turn green both figuratively AND literally. Why, you might even get knighted for your trouble.

[mc6809e]

The Buckingham Palace scheme will cost up to pound stg. 50,000 ($120,000), but is expected to pay for itself in three to seven years. It could then provide free heat energy for a century with almost no maintenance.

WOW! The per year savings will be between $17,000 and $40,000 which means the total bill right now must be enormous.

[WHATNEXT?]

So, it is an underground heat pump system. The weakest link is the compressor. We had to replace our heat pump/compressor every 5-10 years making it a very expensive heating system.

[mc6809e]

So, it is an underground heat pump system. The weakest link is the compressor. We had to replace our heat pump/compressor every 5-10 years making it a very expensive heating system.

My heat pump has lasted at least 15 years.

Overall, heat pumps save money for most people, providing about 3.3 times as much heat as you'd get from direct heating by electricity. Typical open-loop systems like the one described in the article will give you back 4 to 5 times the heat.

Maybe you just had some bad luck.

[DB]

Just dig a deeper hole so you get geothermal heat. Then you don't need a heat pump. Just a pump. It probably takes a really deep hole... ;-) Bad luck if you hit some nasty gas... You might hit oil first though...

[Shawndell Green]

We have been using heat pumps in Texas for a long time. Of course, since the temperature of the ground is more stable than air, a gournd based system is going to be more efficient, albeit more expensive to install.

[American in Israel]

Wow, the bloody British have invented a new system that has only been in use in American homes for 20 years. At this rate the EU will catch up with America in about 300 or so decades... Using well pump heat sinks is very old technology. A more advanced version pumps water from one well, uses it in a heat exchanger in the cooling system and pours the used water back down another well. Rather than risking contamination of the water table, or saturation of the well with heat or cooling buildup limiting your savings, you return the unwanted thermal load to another well and as the water flows between the two wells it transfers the heat to a much larger area. And as a bonus, you do not need expensive special refrigerant piping and special systems.

But give um another 20 years and they will figure that out too. Bloody brilliant they may be, but sometimes it helps to read a trade mag or two from America.

[poobear]

State Certified Mechanical Contractor/Engineer Bump!

[Michael Bluth]

"The weakest link is the compressor."

To the compressor:

You are The Weakest Link! Good-bye.

[Martin Tell]

My heat pump has lasted at least 15 years.

My wife called our (former) heat pump the "cold pump." Maybe it's efficient but it did not heat very well - not well enough to overcome even our mild Tennessee winters. We now use natural gas. It may be expensive, but it works.

[ErnBatavia]

I have a heat pump here in the desert where it doesn't get too cold...my problem with it is that if the outdoor temp drops below 40 or so (certainly not cold!) the damn compressor hisses and shuts off, leaving only the fan running. Such as that is, there's no way I'd want to leave the thermostat set to "heat" overnight.

[sergeantdave]

Just throw the queen and elton down a 3,000 ft mineshaft. The temperature should be a toasty 80 degrees.