Field Experiments and Evaluation on a Snow Melting Tank by using Underground Thermal Energy in N-cho Hokkaido

This paper describes field experiments and evaluation on a snow melting system by using underground thermal energy in order to verify its energy saving performance. Firstly, experiments on a snow melting tank with a vertical earth heat exchanger which is 30m in depth were made and it was found that the heat extraction rate from the underground reached approximately 1.4kW. Secondly, an evaluation program on the snow melting system was developed, and the program was verified to give good predictions on the system performance.As a result of system simulations on a snow melting area, a length of the vertical earth heat exchanger and the tank volume, it was clarified that the energy consumption and CO2 emissions were greatly reduced comparing with conventional snow melting systems.