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The BTES 1.4 Base Circuit is based on the hydraulic configuration of a concept commonly used in Belgium.

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Operating conditions

The BTES 1.4 BC has different operating conditions. There are two suggested operating conditions the BC should operate in.

Cold withdraw

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In the operating condition “cold withdraw”, the coolth stored in the ground is used to cool down the building, meanwhile heating up the fluid and the heat stored in the ground.

Cold deposit

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In the operating condition “cold deposit”, the heat stored in the ground is used to heat up the building (commonly done by a heat pump), meanwhile cooling down the fluid and the cooled stored in the ground.

Design

The BTES system has two design conditions, one for summer “Cold withdraw” and one for winter “Cold deposit”. All the components inside the BC and on the primary side of the BC are active in both design conditions. The design of every component is clarified by going through the design flow for both full load conditions.

Design flow rates

The design flow rates are separately calculated for “Cold withdraw” and “Cold deposit”. All the temperatures and thermal powers are needed. To clarify the design conditions, the user can toggle the hotkey “Ctrl+O”, which shows the two full load design conditions. “Cold withdraw” is visualised in the figure on the left and “Cold deposit” in the figure on the right.

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Cold withdraw

In the figure below the required input data is visualised to calculate the volume flow rate for “Cold withdraw”.

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The user can also insert the design soil temperature, which should be lower than the borehole regime temperatures. With the temperatures and the thermal power known, the design flow rate for “Cold withdraw” can be calculated.

Cold deposit

In the figure below the required input data is visualised to calculate the volume flow rate for “Cold deposit”.

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The flow rate that is being propagated to the production side of the Base Circuit (left side) is the maximum flow rate, which can either be the “Cold withdraw” or “Cold deposit” flow rate. The corresponding temperatures of the maximum flow rate are propagated as well.

UA-value calculation

There are two heat exchanger in the BTES BC, a plate heat exchanger and the borehole heat exchanger. The UA-value of both heat exchangers is calculated when the user does the calculation “Compute design flows” in Hysopt.

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Notice that the UA-value can also be inserted by the user and locked, which means both design conditions for “Cold deposit” and “Cold withdraw” change.

Pipe selection

The pipes on the right side of the BC are designed on the volume flow rate of “Cold withdraw”, the pipes on the left are designed on the maximum flow rate which is for “Cold withdraw” or “Cold deposit”.

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  • Insert thermal losses of the pipes, by selection the insulation class and the environment temperature.

  • Insert a zeta-value or surplus percentage to represent extra pressure drops

Optimisation system components

The only component inside the BTES BC that needs to be calculated is the pump.

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Pump in BC

The pump inside the BC is calculated using the maximum volume flow rate, either for “Cold deposit” or “Cold withdraw”. All the pressure drops of every active component in the operating condition with the maximum flow rate is taken into account to calculate the pump head, including the primary side.

Pump secondary side BC

There should also be a pump on the secondary side of the BC for the operating condition “Cold withdraw”. This pump needs to overcome all the pressure drops of every active component in the operating condition “Cold withdraw” on the secondary side of the BC. The pump doesn’t have to overcome the pressure drop of any component on the primary side of the BC or inside the BC, except for pressure drop on the secondary side of the heat exchanger.

Pump warnings

If a pump is missing on the secondary side, an error is shown when doing a “system check”, because if there is no pump, there won’t be any cold delivered to the cooling end units.

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A warning is also shown during a “system check” if a pump is placed on the primary side because two pumps are in series, which is suboptimal in most cases. More info on pumps can be found in Pumps.

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Simulation

In a simulation, controls are needed to make sure the BTES BC does what the user wants it to do. To control the BC correctly, different enable signals (green) and measuring signals (red) are implemented in the BC.

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  1. Pump modulation signal
    If a signal between 0 and 1 is sent to this node, the pump will modulate between 100% rpm and its minimum modulation (in default 10%). This is only the case if the pump is activated.

  2. Pump activation signal
    If a signal 1 is sent to this node, the pump is activated. If a signal 0 is send the pump is deactivated and won't generate any flow.

  3. Borehole temperature production side

  4. Soil temperature

  5. Borehole temperature end-unit side

Simulation parameters

Furthermore, there are still a few setting the user can change for simulation. To change these settings, the user should activate the simulation layer on the right side of the library.

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To set the sine wave for the soil, the user should insert the maximum and minimum temperature. The sine wave is set up in such a way that the minimum value is reached after the peak winter days and the maximum value is reached after the peak summer days (of an average year). The clarification is visualised in the figure below.

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Load matching BTES

The BTES system can be load matched with measured data when it is available. When the building owner is interested in installing a BTES system, sometimes a TRT (Thermal Response Test) is used to check the application of a BTES system. This TRT can also be used to load match the BTES BC for an accurate simulation.

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