The design and development of an innovative simulator for an open loop system for extracting energy from flooded coal mines

Water source heat pumps, in comparison to air-to-air heat pumps, have significant advantage for heating or cooling applications due to the relatively regulated temperature of most water resources. In the UK, similar to many other countries, disused coal mines have untapped potential for low cost green energy due to the flooding of coal mines with water at reasonable warm temperature due to the availability of geothermal energy at different depths. This allows to use water source heat pumps in locations away from rivers and seas for heating and cooling applications. Extracting energy from flooded coal mines using water heat pumps with open loop systems is still relatively a new concept, but can provide much heating capacity due to eliminating the time needed for heat transfer between the external environment and the heating loop in case of closed loop systems. The use of real systems to conduct research could be an expensive task or impractical to users of the application such as the residents of the served building. On the other hand, computer simulation includes significant assumptions that might not be accurate in many real situations. In this paper, the authors have developed a small scale simulator to help in understanding such energy systems and to conduct research in this field for the benefit of researchers, educators and students within the applied and renewable energy field. The paper describes the detailed design, the complete prototype and initial assessment of the system using infrared thermography and temperature monitoring. The results show that the system has been found successful in conveying the concept of extracting energy from coal mines and to characterize the general performance. (C) The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.