Heating Season GAHT Greenhouse Energy Storage

This thesis provides a baseline characterization of an Earth-to-Air Heat Exchanger in the context of a high efficiency greenhouse structure during the month of February in Ashe County, North Carolina. The Ceres High Efficiency Greenhouse Solutions trademarked Ground-to-Air Heat Transfer (GAHT) system functions as a thermal energy storage technology. This study aims to characterize the function and efficiency of the GAHT system in the Appalachian Mountains during the month of February in its heating season. In this paper four research questions are answered related to latent heat transfer, total energy storage, and coefficient of performance. For this data set, the GAHT is capable of storing a daily average of 128,588 BTU (37.7 kWhTH). It held an average Coefficient of Performance of 2.38 when continuously running. The paper provides a review of relevant literature, gives greenhouse and thermal energy storage background, and describes methods and analysis to find and evaluate performance metrics for the results numbers.