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Geothermal Heat Pumps How it works Air temperature swings widely through the day and across seasons, but a few meters below the surface the ground holds a near-constant temperature all year. Geothermal systems exploit this by circulating water or refrigerant through long loops of buried pipe. In cooling mode heat is transferred from the building into the ground; in heating mode it is drawn from the ground into the building. Because the source temperature never becomes extreme, the system avoids the seasonal derating that affects air source equipment, and both efficiency and reliability stay high in peak summer and peak winter alike. Design considerations Performance depends on ground loop design — horizontal trenches where land is available, vertical boreholes where it is not — along with soil thermal conductivity and moisture content. Sunniva sizes the loop field alongside the machine so that source-side temperatures remain within the design band over the system's life. Applications Space heating and cooling, water heating and cooling, and industrial processes. Well suited to campuses, institutional buildings and large residential developments with available land, where the higher civil cost of the loop field is offset by very low running cost and long equipment life.
