In order to make efficient use of energy, a group of civil engineers and architects of the National University of Cordoba (UNC) developed a system that uses the heat of the soil to acclimate homes through geothermal energy.
A team of civil engineers and architects of the National University of Cordoba (UNC) developed a system to harness the accumulated heat under the ground, the result of solar radiation, to condition housing.
With a system of pipes located a few meters below ground, they obtained a comfortable room temperature of 18 degrees throughout the year. The method works by air exchange and already tested with very good results in two houses in Córdoba: one located in the city, and the other in the town Mayu Sumaj, in the Valley of Punilla. Now they hope to test it in a building at the University City. A natural alternative thermal conditioning, which ensures significant savings in energy , at very low cost.
The average annual temperature that exists in the surface layers of the Earth (about four meters below the surface) is similar to the average temperature of that latitude. That is, the temperature slightly increases as we descend, and this occurs regardless of external weather conditions. From this principle, university specialists work with a system known in the world as ‘shallow geothermal energy or low enthalpy’, which involves the installation of pipes or tubes placed in excavations shallow, to function as heat exchangers by means of a small electric fan located in the conduit that transfers the temperature of the deep conditioning the environment.
This method works both for heating in winter environments, and to cool them in summer, and supports mechanisms for conventional heating and cooling, as well as the fact that it helps making efficient use of energy .
In some countries in Europe and in the United States and Japan, this method is widespread, although in these cases, instead of air, the fluid that is generally used is water. It also requires a power to force the liquid circulation pump, and the cost would be extremely high in the country.
