Learning Style: |
Recorded webinar |
CPD hours: |
1 hour |
Cost: |
|
Energy piles offer the opportunity to make dual use of our building foundations. As well as providing essential structural support to the overlying building, energy piles are also equipped with heat transfer pipes to allow the connection to a ground source heat pump system.
This recorded webinar will look at the development of energy piles, including common construction practices and general working principles. It will also discuss current barriers to uptake and examine ongoing research which is aiming to enable more efficient design and testing and hence break down those barriers.
Reinforced concrete piles can be used in a ground energy storage system to house a closed system of plastic heat transfer pipes attached to the reinforcement cage of the pile. The pipes are used to circulate a heat transfer fluid through the closed system from and to the central control system for the building services, where a heat pump is used to amend the temperature to a level suitable for heating/ cooling purposes.
Energy piles as introduced in this webinar use the ground as an energy storage system to support heating and cooling of buildings. They are not suitable for the extraction of hot steam for geothermal power production.
In this way the foundations can also contribute to the renewable heating and cooling of the building as the ground temperature below 2-5m depth below the surface remains almost constant throughout the year which allows the storage and extraction of energy through the heat transfer pipes inside the foundation piles for heating and cooling with ground source heat pumps.
Learning outcomes
Participants should be able to:
- Explain the general principles of ground source heat pump systems using energy piles;
- Explain how the system could be used to support low temperature heating and cooling systems;
- Identify suitable piling methods for energy piles; and
- Discuss some common risks, opportunities and barriers for a potential implementation of energy piles in the New Zealand market
Course Format
Recorded webinar from the online presentation including the Q&A with the presenter.
Intended Audience
The intended audience includes geotechnical engineers, structural engineers, civil engineers, piling contractors, architects, builders, asset owners, Project, Commercial and Construction Managers of construction companies, land development forms, councils and other government agencies.
Presenter Information
Dr Martin Larisch is a Principal Geotechnical Engineer and Technical Lead for Ground Engineering in New Zealand with Jacobs. He has been involved in piling and ground engineering for more than 20 years, with technical and operational leadership positions in some of the leading geotechnical contracting and consultancy firms in Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
Throughout his professional career he was involved in the design, construction and verification of a large number of different deep foundation projects of different scale and size across the Asia Pacific Region. He has worked on the first energy piling project in 2005 in Germany and was involved in various research projects involving energy piles and ground source heat pump systems at The University of Queensland in Brisbane from 2010 to 2021.
