THERMO-ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF A GEOTHERMAL-BASED HIGH TEMPERATURE HEAT PUMP

In light of growing environmental concerns, there's a heightened drive to lessen the industrial sector's reliance on natural gas. A system capable of providing mid-low temperature heat (ranging from 90°C to 120°C) in a sustainable and cost-effective way is increasingly attractive to the industrial sector. In this study, a detailed exergo-economic analysis of possible geothermal-based system has been performed to asses the economic feasibility of the proposed solution. Moreover, the performance of the sCO2-based system will be compared with a water loop for geothermal heat extraction coupled with an High-Temperature Heat Pump to asses the behaviour of the proposed scheme under different reservoir condition. In the scope of this study, it has been also considered the possibility of power cogeneration which could be achieved, for the sCO2-based system, exploiting the natural pressurisation of the fluid due to the thermosyphon effect, and that will be even more appealing for the industrial sector. The performed calculation have shown that the LCOH of the system is expected to be in line with other comparable technologies with the sCO2-based system being more promising for the production of lower temperature heat and for geological setting with lower geothermal gradient.