Thermal energy transfer around buried pipe infrastructure

Decarbonisation of heating is essential to meet national and international greenhouse gas emissions targets. This will require adoption a range solutions including ground source heat pump district technologies. A novel route these includes dual use buried infrastructure for transfer storage in addition its primary function. Water supply wastewater collection pipes may be well suited thermal energy applications being present all urban areas networks already proximity users. However, greater understanding their potential interactions with surrounding sources sinks required before full assessment the such pipe can obtained. paper presents an investigation into associated shallow, water filled pipes. Using results large scale experiments numerical simulation it shown that soil surface ambient conditions adjacent both act as or heat. While conduction main mechanism directly any pipe, lead convection becoming important locally. In test case, sphere influence was also large, at excess 4 m over timescale months. Taken together, points suggest design analysis approaches when using exchange need careful consideration environmental interactions, losses gains other infrastructure, number diameters from pipe.