To the geo professionals:

We are all seeking real world geothermal system performance data.   Our company wants to meter our systems (both DX and water loops) for electrical use, pressures, temperatures, air flow.  Is anyone doing this now?  If so, let us know what you're measuring and how you're doing it so we may adapt the mechanisms to our systems.  We all know how valuable this data will prove to be - and we will publish it.   Thanks.

Paul
www.TotalGreenUS.com

 

What pressure do you hope to measure?

Refrigerant pressure and temperatures. This applies to the DX system and isn't really necessary for WL systems.

Paul

Posted By Paul Auerbach on 03 Mar 2012 11:52 AM
To the geo professionals:

We are all seeking real world geothermal system performance data.   Our company wants to meter our systems (both DX and water loops) for electrical use, pressures, temperatures, air flow.  Is anyone doing this now?  If so, let us know what you're measuring and how you're doing it so we may adapt the mechanisms to our systems.  We all know how valuable this data will prove to be - and we will publish it.   Thanks.

Paul
www.TotalGreenUS.com

 

I use a Web Energy Logger to "meter" 2 WaterFurnace Envision geothermal (closed water loop) systems.  Take a look at WEL0043.

It:

> directly measures and records EWT, LWT, EAT (DB), LAT (DB), EAT %RH, refrigerant discharge line temp, refrigerant liquid line in cooling mode temp, power, run time, inside cabinet temp, and heating/cooling degree days;
 
> infers and records loop GPM and air CFM;

> assumes a constant Sensible/Total Cooling Ratio;

> computes and records water loop Delta T, air Delta T, Heat of Extraction / Rejection (HE/HR), Heating / Sensible Cooling Capacity (HC/SC), COP and EER.

> does not measure refrigerant or water loop pressures.

For most of the metrics, the data is 'sampled and held,' eliminating all numbers not associated with a running system.

Real time charts for some of the metrics are available at the above reference.  Time period for the charts is generally one year.  For all metrics, and for multiple years, data and charts are available but not online.

There's only one WEL site that I'm aware of that's measuring refrigerant line pressures.  See WEL0201.  This happens to be an Earthlinked DX system.  (I'm not measuring refrigerant pressures because I don't want to connect directly to the refrigerant circuits and then risk warranty challenge in case of system repair need.)

Hope this is a helpful start.

Best regards,

Bill

http://welserver.com/WEL0477/

This summarizes what we are interested in.

For the purpose of efficiency, all you need is the heat extraction and the Amps drawn. Most things, incl.COP can be calculated from it.

Eaarthlinked wants you to hook up gauges as little as possible- uses a site glass for charging and meters their refrigerant different than other systems. I don't know what you hope to gain from this pressure vs all the other measurements doc mentions.

We are trying to come up with a very simple interface so we can direct consumers to it. If it's done right everyone will benefit. Thanks for all the good information.

Paul