The UK Government in the recent Energy White Paper clearly sets out the ambitious target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 60% by the year 2050, compared to 1990 levels. Buildings are responsible for nearly 45% of the energy consumption in the UK and account for around half of the nation's carbon dioxide emissions. Therefore sustainability has been put high on the Government's development agenda and many targets and aspirations have been set to reduce the environmental impact of new construction projects and urban planning schemes.
Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) technology combined with aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES) are recently becoming more prevalent in the UK construction industry because of its high efficiency and carbon saving potential. However, installed system efficiency varies with many factors and this in some cases has found to be very low.  To better understand installed system performance a transient model has been developed that simulates the integration of the building with the GSHP and the ATES. This has been developed in the TRNSYS environment and can be used to predict system performance over time under different UK climate regions and geology conditions. The model is presented in this paper and examples are given showing how GSHP can be used to realise energy and carbon saving in the UK.

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