Applied Thermal Engineering 223 (2023) 120029

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Applied Thermal Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

Research Paper

Stabilization of the temperature in a greenhouse using a

Geothermal-Battery-Energy-Storage (GBES) system
Jin Luo *, Anning Li, Xinning Ma, Kanghui Pei
Faculty of Engineering, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), Wuhan 430074, People’s Republic of China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Solar and geothermal energies have been widely used for heating greenhouses over the past decades. However,
Geothermal-Battery-Energy-Storage (GBES) the solar energy was not available at night and the geothermal energy was often supplied at high capital costs. To
Earth-Air-Heat-Exchanger (EAHE) improve the cost-effectiveness, we propose a novel Geothermal-Battery-Energy-Storage (GBES) system which
Solar energy storage
uses solar heat storage with geothermal energy for heating a greenhouse. Three operating modes of the system
Heat storage and extraction
were tested. In Mode A, the GBES-based greenhouse has a temperature of 3.7◦ C higher than a conventional
Greenhouse
greenhouse. By covering a double-layer membrane for the greenhouse, in Mode B, its temperature is even 6.6◦ C
higher than that in Mode A, because the insulation of the system prevents heat loss effectively. When further
heating the system in an intermittent manner, Mode C maintains the same energy efficiency as Mode B, but
saving the input energy by 40%. Moreover, the Coefficient of Performance (COP) of the GBES system can reach
up to 5.9, which is 1.6 times higher than a conventional geothermal greenhouse, and at a remarkably low capital
and operating cost. The GBES system shows the promise in stabilizing the temperature of a greenhouse at a low
cost.

1. Introduction
Greenhouse has been widely used in agriculture and horticulture due
to the great advantages of the controllable indoor temperature and
moisture [1,2]. In winter, in order to maintain a warm environment to
ensure a suitable temperature of plant, greenhouse needs to be heated up
when the ambient temperature drop below to the temperature lower
band and coal-based boiler was commonly used [3]. For example, the
temperature inside a greenhouse for planting flowers should be maintain
the band of 10–20◦ C and should not fall below 5.0◦ C [4]. The combus­
tion of fossil fuels contributes significantly to air pollution and emission
of CO2 [5,6]. To mitigate the caused environmental impacts, renewable
and clean energy resources have been considered as alternatives [7,8].
Among all, solar and geothermal technology have great potential for
heating a greenhouse due to the superiorities of environmental friend­
liness and free carbon-emission [9,10]. Thermal and techno-economic
performance such as improvement of thermal efficiency and technol­
ogy sizing of these systems became the major concerns for the recent
development [11,12].
In recent years, substantial effects have been made to investigate
thermal performance of greenhouse heated up by using solar energy
[13,14]. The materials such as rock bed, water, soil, Phase Change
Materials (PCM) and thick wall for storing solar energy have been
considered [15,16]. Kurklu et al. [17] stored solar energy in the rock
stratum to heat a greenhouse with an area of 15 m2 by circulating water.
The system can increase the air temperature of the greenhouse by 10◦ C
in winter. A heating system consisting of a copper coil heat exchanger
was designed based on thermal fluid circulation in a glass room in
Morocco [18]. The system used solar energy to heat a water tank during
the daytime and to release the heat to warm up the greenhouse at night.
The results showed that the system can increase the temperature by
4–5◦ C and reduce the humidity by 14%, but the water temperature in
the copper pipe showed an obvious gradient, leading to unevenly heated
of a greenhouse. Berroug et al. used CaCl2‧6H2O as PCM to build the
north wall of greenhouse in order to absorb solar radiation in daytime
and release as heat at night [19]. On average, the temperature in the
greenhouse increased by 6–12◦ C.
Another alternative to heat up a greenhouse is Ground Source Heat
Pump (GSHP) system. A key obstacle to the scale-up of the application of
GSHP is the high capital costs [20]. Lee et al. built a GSHP system for an
agricultural greenhouse area of 992 m2 in Kangwon Province, South
Korea. The operating costs were saved by 26% compared with a boiler
system over a five-year period operation, but the capital costs are 535%

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jinluo@cug.edu.cn (J. Luo).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2023.120029
Received 14 August 2022; Received in revised form 22 December 2022; Accepted 5 January 2023
Available online 7 January 2023
1359-4311/© 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
J. Luo et al.
Nomenclature
GBES Geothermal-Battery-Energy-Storage
EHAE Earth-Air-Heat-Exchanger
PCM Phase Change Materials
GSHP Ground Source Heat Pump
HDPE High Density Polythene
PVC Polyvinyl Chloride
Qst The heat stored per hour by the GBES system (J)
Qex The heat extraction per hour by the GBES system (J)
c Air specific heat capacity at constant pressure J/(kg⋅◦ C)
ρ Air density (kg/m3)
v Air flow rate (m/s)
A Area of the pipe (m2)
t Time (s)
Ta,in Inlet air temperature (◦ C)
Ta,out Outlet air temperature (◦ C)
COP Coefficient of Performance
Qin Energy input to operate the fan (J)
higher than a boiler system [21]. Seo & Seo installed a GSHP system in a
greenhouse with an area of 90 m2 and made a cost-benefit comparative
analysis with other types of fuel systems. The operating benefits of a
GSHP system can hardly payback the capital costs by considering a ten-
year period of operation [22].
In addition, to improve the cost-effectiveness, the passive use of
shallow geothermal energy for greenhouse heating has been proposed
[23]. Ozgener & Ozgener examined the temperature development of a
horizontal pipe placed at 3 m depth in a greenhouse with an area of 48
m2 in 2010. The temperature in the greenhouse can maintain 7.2◦ C
higher than the ambient air [24]. Boughanmi [25] monitored the
operation of a greenhouse with an area of 14.7 m2 in North Africa which
was equipped with a conic helicoidal geothermal heat exchanger system
in 2018. It showed that the air temperature in the greenhouse kept
2–3◦ C higher than the ambient temperature at night in winter. Heat
transfer efficiency decreased significantly with time when an EAHE
system operated for a long time [26,27]. Further studies showed that
thermal performance of an EAHE system is highly dependent on the soil
thermal conductivity and soil temperature. The higher the soil con­
ductivity and the higher the initial temperature, the higher is the ther­
mal performance of the system [28].
The above-mentioned previous works indicated that both solar and
geothermal energy can be used as clean resources for greenhouse
heating [29,30]. However, the solar energy can only be available in
daytime and the shallow geothermal energy in place is commonly with
high capital costs [31]. The combination of using the solar and
geothermal energy becomes an alternative to overcome the mentioned
drawbacks in greenhouse heating, which is insufficiently investigated
[32]. In this paper, a GBES system is developed for storing solar energy
in daytime and for extracting heat at night to stabilize the temperature
of a greenhouse in Hubei, China. The temperature inside the greenhouse
and in soil is monitored to understand both the system thermal perfor­
mance and the ground thermal response. The insulation effects on heat
loss of a greenhouse are also examined. Aiming to save the energy input,
an intermittent operation is proposed. The capital costs, operating costs
and thermal efficiency are analyzed to understand the cost-effectiveness
of the system.
2. Materials and study methodology
2.1. Climatic and geological setting
The study area was located in Zhongxiang city, Hubei Province in
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Applied Thermal Engineering 223 (2023) 120029
China, as shown in Fig. 1. It is a typical subtropical monsoon zone with
an annual mean temperature of 16.2◦ C, the highest temperature in
summer can exceed 39◦ C and the lowest temperature in winter was
below − 5◦ C. Over the past decades, the average annual intensity of solar
radiation is 4409.69 MJ/m2 and with the sunshine duration ranging
from 1823 to 1978 h. The greenhouses were installed at an alluvium
terrace of The Han River in which the soil was composed of clay, silt,
sands and gravels. The groundwater level is about 4.0 m below the
ground surface.
2.2. Experimental setup and system monitoring
Both the greenhouse No. 1 and No. 2 are oriented parallel in the
north–south direction with 9.0 m length, 4.5 m width and 1.5 m height.
The azimuth-angle of sunlight is about 80◦ –250◦ at the test site in
winter. A distance of 50 cm was set between the two greenhouses to
avoid the shades of two adjacent greenhouses. In order to test the per­
formance of solar storage and heat extraction, a GBES system was
deployed in the greenhouses which was marked as No. 1. Two layers of
parallel connected High Density Polythene (HDPE) corrugated pipes
with the diameter of 65 mm were placed at 0.7 m depth and 1.2 m depth
in the soil, as shown in Fig. 2. The distance of two adjacent pipes was set
of 0.3 m and these pipes were assembled at the two ends of the green­
house and connected with a Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) pipe with 250 mm
diameter. Two fans were installed in the PVC pipe to circulate the air
through the pipes in the soil as EAHE, as it is specified in Table 1. The
battery perimeter was isolated from the ground by a plastic barrier to
maintain the stored heat, as shown in Fig. 2. The barrier for heat insu­
lation was rubber-plastic cotton with the thickness of 20 mm which has
thermal conductivity of 0.034 W/m⋅K. The insulation can be deformed
once it is buried in soil, leading to a thermal conductivity change and
this change can be estimated by considering the air volume change as it
is described in a mode of porous media [33]. In the present work, the
thermal insulation compression was not considered due to a pipe frame
was used to maintain the structure.
In order to test the thermal performance of the GBES-based green­
houses, the process for solar-heat storage in daytime and extraction at
night was considered. In daytime, with solar radiation, the temperature
inside greenhouse rises dramatically and the greenhouse was commonly
over-heated. Corrugated pipes are used for circulating the hot air inside
the greenhouse through the buried pipe to dump the heat into the soil.
The corrugated pipe with a rough surface was chosen due to higher
thermal efficiency as compared to a pipe with a smooth surface [34,35].
At night, the temperature of the greenhouse decreases with the
ambient air temperature drops. To maintain a stable temperature, the
GBES system operates to extract the heat that stored in the soil in day­
time. The temperature evolution in the greenhouse, the ambient air and
the soil were monitored by eight temperature sensors. The ambient air
temperature was monitored at 1.0 m height above the ground surface.
The air circulated through the pipe was monitored at the pipe inlet and
outlet, as it is displayed in Fig. 3. Moreover, the soil temperature was
also monitored at 1.0 m depth in both greenhouses. The temperature
sensors, type: C0S-03-5 digital sensor, Shandong Renke measurement
and control technology Ltd. China, with the specifications are displayed
in Table 2.
To optimize the thermal performance with considering system
configuration and operation management, the system operates under
three modes are investigated as follows:
• Mode A: both greenhouses are covered with a single-layer membrane
and operate continuously for 24 h a day. The greenhouse No. 1
operates the GBES to cool down the excessive heated greenhouse by
storing the heat in the soil. The greenhouse No. 2 was just enclosed
with a single-layer membrane and allows the heat accumulate and
dissipate naturally. The testing period of this mode lasts from
November 22nd to December 17th, 2021.
J. Luo et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 223 (2023) 120029

Fig. 1. The location of the greenhouse installed at Zhongxiang city of Hubei province in China.

Fig. 2. Some snapshots of the installation of the greenhouses: a. The lower pipe buried at 1.2 m depth, b. The upper pipe placed at 0.7 m depth, c. The propeller fans
in the greenhouse No. 1, d. An overview of the greenhouse No. 1 and No. 2.

• Mode B: In this mode, to examine the heat insulation effects of the
membrane on heat loss, greenhouse No. 1 was covered with an
additional membrane. Both greenhouses run continuously in this
mode and the ground temperature response in the soil is also
monitored. This mode operates from December 18th to December
29th, 2021.
• Mode C: Considering that the thermal efficiency of the heat storage in
the greenhouse could be affected by the temperature difference be­
tween air inside the greenhouse and the soil, the system performance

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J. Luo et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 223 (2023) 120029

Table 1
The specification of the fans used for circulating the air through the pipe for heat storage and extraction.
Type Rotating speed Flow rate Static pressure Rated power Rated voltage Diameter
(r/min) (m3/min) (Pa) (W) (V) (mm)

HP-200P 2450 14.2 352 128 220 197

1950 11.5 274 123

Fig. 3. The configuration of two prepared greenhouses and the monitoring setup: a-I and a-II: displays the greenhouse No.1 with single-layer membrane and with
double-layer membrane, b-I and b-II: shows materials and process of making thermal baffle, c: is the geometric configuration of the buried propeller pipe.

( )
Table 2 Qst = cρvAt Ta,out − Ta,in (1)
The specification of temperature and humidity sensors used in the field tests.
( )
Temperature measuring − 25◦ C to + Measuring ±0.5◦ C Qex = cρvAt Ta,in − Ta,out (2)
range 60◦ C accuracy
where Qst is the heat stored per hour by the GBES system (J), Qex is
Humidity measurement 1% to 99%RH Measuring 1.5%RH
the heat extraction per hour by the GBES system (J), c is the specific heat
range accuracy
Working temperature − 10◦ C to + Working less than 99% capacity, J/(kg⋅◦ C), ρ is the density (kg/m3), v is the flow rate of air (m/
50◦ C humidity RH s), A is the area of the pipe (m2), t is the time of duration of storage/
extraction (s), Ta,in is the inlet air temperature (◦ C), Ta,out is the outlet air
temperature (◦ C) [36].
was optimized. This work considers the intermittent operation to
In the present work, the uncertainty of the estimated amount of
maximize the thermal efficiency by reducing the input power to run
energy is mainly attributed to the temperature sensor and flow-meter. A
the fans. The fans operate during daytime from 10:00 am − 17:30 am
simple sensitivity analysis can be used to determine the uncertainty of
and during nighttime from 19:00 pm till 8:30 am. This mode was
each sensor propagating to the final energy output. For example, the
tested with a duration from December 30th, 2021, to January 26th,
system output Q(x1, x2, -…, xn) depends on varying factors, and a
2022, as it is displayed in Fig. 4. The operation management of the
dimensionless sensitivity is introduced as follows [31].
GBES system in three operating modes is specified in Table. 3.
∂Qj /Qj
Sji = (3)
2.3. Thermal performance analysis ∂xi /xi
where Sji is the dimensionless sensitivity (-), Q is the energy output of
2.3.1. Heat storage and extraction the system (J), x is the input parameters such as the flow rate (m3/s) and
Thermal performance and energy balance of the greenhouse can be temperature (◦ C). In the present work, the uncertainty of temperature
determined by the amount of heat storage and heat extraction. It was sensor contributing to the thermal energy is less than 2.0% and flow rate
estimated by measuring the air in-outlet temperature, flow rate and air is less than 3.0%.
heat capacity, which is given as follows:

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J. Luo et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 223 (2023) 120029

Fig. 4. Schematic illustration of the heat storage and extraction of GBES system in the greenhouse No. 1 and a conventional greenhouse No. 2.

and extraction will then be analyzed with considering a ratio. Thermal

Table 3
performance of the GBES-based greenhouse will be discussed.
The operation management of the GBES system in three modes.
Mode Structure Operation time* 3.1. Climatic conditions and geological background
10:00–17:30 17:30–19:00 19:00–8:30 8:30–10:00

A single- √ √ √ √ 3.1.1. Climatic conditions

layer The climatic factors including ground surface temperature, solar
B double- √ √ √ √ radiation, soil temperature at 1.0 m below the ground surface and the
layer
precipitation are monitored [38]. It shows that the study area has a cold
C double- √ – √ –
layer winter and hot summer. The ambient temperature can drop below the
freezing point in December and January, as shown in Fig. 5-a, which
*√: on; –: off.
means a huge amount of heat was needed for maintain a required
temperature-band for growing plant of a greenhouse.
2.3.2. Thermal efficiency of the system A similar trend was observed of the solar radiation as the tempera­
To determine thermal efficiency of the system, an indicator of Co­ ture fluctuation with time. The highest solar radiation which is about 24
efficient of Performance (COP) which denotes the ratio between thermal MJ/m2/d was detected in June. From December to next January, the
output and energy input is considered. The COP of the system is defined intensity of solar radiation was low with a mean value of 8.3 MJ/m2/d.
as the ratio of the heat extraction capacity (Qex ) divided by the electrical The study area was with low temperature and low intensity of solar
energy (W) input to operate the fan, which is given as: radiation in winter, meaning the climatic conditions may not be good
Qex enough for growing plants and an additional heat supply is needed.
COP = (4)
Qin
3.2. Geological setting
where Qex is the heat extraction per hour by the GBES system (J), Qin
is the energy input to operate the fan (J) [4,37]. The soil information was logged during the excavation of the pit
which is about 1.5 m depth. The profile shows that the subsurface was
2.3.3. Analysis of heat storage and extraction composed of different types of soils including cultivated soil, silt, clay
The balance between the daily heat storage and extraction was and muddy clay from the top to the bottom of the pit, as shown in Fig. 6.
essential to understand the sustainable performance of a GBES, which is There was no groundwater encountered during the excavation, meaning
also important to understand the ground temperature development. A that the soil stays an unsaturated condition. Thermal property such as
ratio that represents the amount of heat stored in daytime divided by thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity and thermal capacity of soil
heat extraction at night is defined as: are measured in-situ for each soil layer using a portable instrument
Qst ISOMET 2114 (Applied Precision ltd., Stavitelska, Slovakia) during the
R= (5) pit excavation. The chosen instrument uses a heated needle probe
Qex
inserted into the soil to measure the soils thermal properties. The results
where R is the ratio (-), Qst is the amount of heat stored in the soil in show that the subsurface has low thermal conductivity varying from
daytime (J), Qex is the amount of heat extracted from the soil at night (J). 1.19 W/m‧K and 1.32 W/m‧K.
The specific profile of the soil is listed as follows: the cultivation soil
3. Results and discussion was at the top of 0.00 m–0.15 m depth with gray and black color. The
next level is silty clay at 0.15 m–0.63 m depth which is with the gray-
In this section, the results obtained through the field tests will be brown color, unsaturated and plastic state. The further excavation dis­
presented and discussed. The temperature evolution of air and the soil plays that the clay with yellow color is encountered at 0.63–1.26 m
under three operating modes will be compared. The daily heat storage depth. The bottom of the profile is muddy clay, at 1.20 m − 1.50 m

5
J. Luo et al.
Fig. 5. Ambient air temperature, intensity of solar radiation, soil temperature and precipitation in Zhongxiang City monitored from January 1st to December 31st,
2021 [36].
depth, with gray color and with high moisture content.
3.3. Thermal performance analysis
3.3.1. Temperature development
The air temperature in greenhouses and the ambient air temperature
changes associated with the intensity of solar radiation under three
operating modes are shown in Fig. 7. In Mode A, in daytime, the tem­
perature rises drastically and reaches a peak of 38◦ C at noon. Later the
temperature decreases for both greenhouses and the ambient air with
decreasing the intensity of the solar radiation. The temperature in a
greenhouse is significantly higher as compared with the ambient air
temperature, meaning the use of membrane can keep the heat inside the
greenhouse very well. Note also that the peak temperature of green­
house No. 1 is slightly lower that of the greenhouse No. 2, as shown in
Fig. 7-a, indicating that the collected heat in greenhouse No. 1 could be
effectively stored in the soil. At night, the temperature of the green­
houses decreases continuously with decreasing the ambient air tem­
perature. The greenhouse No. 2 has slightly higher temperature of
1.0–2.0◦ C than the ambient air in the early night, but an obvious higher
temperature was detected in the greenhouse No. 1. On average, the
temperature of the greenhouse No. 1 is 3.7◦ C higher than that of the
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Applied Thermal Engineering 223 (2023) 120029
greenhouse No. 2. This means that the GBES system works efficiently to
extract heat from the soil to maintain a relatively higher temperature at
night. Similar findings have been reported by the Ref. [26] and Ref. [39]
both using the EAHE to extract heat for stabilizing the temperature of
greenhouses [26,39].
In Mode B, similar temperature development was observed as Mode
A. In the daytime, the greenhouse No. 1 has the same temperature with
the greenhouse No. 2 when the intensity of solar radiation is high, e.g.
from December 20th to December 24th, 2021. The temperature in
greenhouse No. 1 is significantly higher than that in greenhouse No. 2
when the solar radiation is low, e.g. from December 25th to 27th, 2021,
as shown in Fig. 7-b. This means more energy can be stored in daytime as
compared withMode A due to the higher temperature, and it implies also
a slower heat loss through the double-layer of membrane. At night, the
temperature inside the greenhouse No. 1 is significantly higher than the
greenhouse No. 2, with a mean difference is 6.5◦ C. It is verified that the
double-layer of membrane prevents the heat loss of a greenhouse very
effectively.
In Mode C, similar temperature evolution was detected as that of
Mode B, as shown in Fig. 7-c. It displays that the intermittent operation
can reach the same performance as the continuous operation. The later
operation shows a cloudy daytime with very low intensity of solar
J. Luo et al.
Fig. 6. The soil profile logged at the site of the greenhouses.
radiation. The temperature of ambient air and greenhouse No. 2 was
close to freezing points. The temperature in greenhouse No. 1 keeps
constant around 10.0◦ C which is about 4.8–8.1◦ C higher than that of
greenhouse No. 2 through the whole period. This could be attributed to
both the thermal insulation and GBES heat extraction from the soil,
meaning the combination of both strategies is effective to maintain high
temperature of a greenhouse. Moreover, the relative humidity variation
in greenhouse No. 1 is presented in Fig. 8. It shows that the humidity
decreases with increasing the temperature inside the greenhouse. The
lowest relative humidity of 40% is determined in the middle day and
increase up to 100% at night due to the temperature drop. All these
changes have been taken into account in the later analysis of the heat
storage and extraction.
3.3.2. Temperature response in the soil
To understand the ground temperature response, the soil tempera­
ture associated with the air outlet temperature was monitored from
November 22nd, 2021 to January 26th, 2022. It shows that all the
temperature decreases with time, indicating the heat loss from the soil
was due to the chilly ambient air. The soil temperature inside both
greenhouses is higher than the natural soil temperature at the same
depth of 1.0 m, as shown in Fig. 9. This means that the membrane can
protect the heat loss from the soil effectively. Temperature fluctuation
was observed in the greenhouse No. 1, which was due to the balance
between heat storage and extraction in the soil by operating the GBES
system, the soil temperature increases when the amount of heat storage
is greater than extraction and vice versa.
It is also noticed that the soil temperature in greenhouse No. 1 is
lower than the greenhouse No. 2 before December 22nd, 2021 when
both greenhouses were covered by a single-layer membrane, meaning
the heat stored in the soil was extracted to maintain higher air tem­
perature of the greenhouse No. 1, as shown in Fig. 7. In the later oper­
ation, the greenhouse No. 1 was insulated using a double-layer
membrane and the heat was well reserved in the greenhouse, resulting
into higher temperature at night.
3.3.3. The balance of heat storage and extraction
As is observed in the experiments, the air temperature inside the
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Applied Thermal Engineering 223 (2023) 120029
greenhouse rises drastically during the daytime in a sunshine day. This
provides the potential for heat storage in soil by using the GBES system,
as it is illustrated in Fig. 4. At night, the temperature of a conventional
greenhouse will drop dramatically due to the cold ambient. This dras­
tically change of temperature in a greenhouse can be stabilized by
pumping the heat from the soil, as it is verified in Section 3.1.1.
The amount of heat storage in daytime and extraction at night of the
greenhouse No. 1 operating in three modes was determined and the
hourly value was displayed in Fig. 10. It shows that the time duration for
heat storage is shorter than that of heat extraction and the peak value for
heat storage is often higher than that of heat extraction. In the period of
insufficiently heat storage, heat can be extracted from the soil and a net
negative value is presented in Fig. 10 b-c, meaning the formerly stored
heat in a sunny day was utilized later in a cloudy day.
As is indicated by the soil temperature in Fig. 10, the balance of heat
storage in daytime and heat extraction at night can affect significantly
the temperature change in the soil. In this paper, the ratio R defined in
Eq. 5 representing the heat stored in daytime divided by the heat
extraction at night is considered. The value less than 1.0 means more
heat was extracted at night than that stored in daytime, and vice versa. A
perfectly balanced heat can be achieved when the ratio equals to 1.0. In
Mode A, the estimated ratio is lower than 1.0 under all the intensity of
solar radiation, as shown in Fig. 11. In Mode B, the ratio exceeds to 1.0
when the intensity is higher than 110 W/m2, meaning more heat was
stored than extracted. Compared with the Mode A, the ratio value was
relatively higher, indicating higher efficiency in heat storage in Mode B.
Similar condition was observed in Mode C, as it is verified in Fig. 7. The
higher the intensity of solar radiation the higher is the value of ratio.
3.3.4. Economic analysis
The capital costs of a GBES system consist of the components fee and
the installation costs. The determination of the capital costs for all types
of energy systems in this work are given as:
∑n
(Pcom,i )+Cin
Ccap = i=1 (6)
A
where Ccap is the capital cost of the system (USD/m2), Pcom,i is the
price of each single component (USD), Cin is the installation fee (USD). A
J. Luo et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 223 (2023) 120029

Fig. 7. The temperature development inside the greenhouse and ambient air associated with the intensity of solar radiation in three operating modes (*On/off:
indicates that the fan is operating or stopping).

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J. Luo et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 223 (2023) 120029

Fig. 8. Relative humidity development of the greenhouse No. 1 in three operating modes (*On/off: indicates that the fan is operating or stopping).

Fig. 9. The pipe outlet air temperature of the GBES system and the soil temperature, ambient air temperature variation during the testing period.

is the area of a greenhouse (m2) [37].
The capital costs of the GBES system are analyzed with considering
the components and the installation, as it is specified in Table 4. By
comparing with a conventional GSHP [22] with capital costs of unit area
of the building are 20–40 USD/m2, boiler is 2–5 USD/m2 [37], solar
heating system is 7–13 USD/m2 [40]. the capital costs of a GBES system
is about 6.6 USD/m2 which is around 20% of a GSHP system and 66% of
a solar heating system. Further analysis shows that the operating costs of
a GBES system is 50%–70% lower compared with that of a GSHP system.
All the comparison of costs above was conducted with considering a
discount rate of 5.0% to the same year. Thus, the GBES system can be
expected with a high economic viable for scalable application in
practice.
The assessed COP of the GBES-based greenhouse under three modes
was displayed in Fig. 12. At the first stage, the Mode A, the mean value of
the COP is 2.8. Later, in Mode B, the COP increased up to 4.4 when the
system was insulated with a double-layer of membrane. The further
intermittent operation of the insulated greenhouse, Mode C, has a mean
COP of 5.9 which is 60% higher as compared with that of the Mode A.
The COP of the GBES-based greenhouse is around 1.6 times higher than
a conventional GSHP system [22,41,42]. It is also noticed from Fig. 7
that the ambient temperature shows a decreasing trend, meaning the
Mode B has lower ambient temperature and the Mode C has lowest
temperature. This further proves that the combination of greenhouse
insulation and operation management can improve the thermal effi­
ciency of the system effectively even with a cold ambient environment.
4. Conclusions
This paper investigates the thermal performance of a greenhouse

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J. Luo et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 223 (2023) 120029

Fig. 10. Heat storage and extraction by running the GBES systems in three operating modes (*On/off: indicates that the fan is operating or stopping).

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J. Luo et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 223 (2023) 120029

than that of a conventional greenhouse, indicating heat was extrac­

ted from the soil at night. In Mode B, the greenhouse No. 1 was
covered by a double-layer membrane and the temperature is about
6.0◦ C higher than the conventional greenhouse at night. It implies
that greenhouse insulation improves thermal performance effec­
tively. In Mode C, the greenhouse operates in an intermittent
manner, a similar temperature development as compared with Mode
B is observed but this mode can save the input energy by 40%.
• The soil temperature in both greenhouses is higher than the natural
soil, meaning that the membrane can protect the heat loss of a
greenhouse effectively. In Mode A, the soil temperature of green­
house No. 1 is lower than greenhouse No. 2 due to the heat was
extracted from the soil to maintain relatively high air temperature.
The later tests show, in Mode B and Mode C, the soil temperature of
greenhouse No. 1 was higher than that of greenhouse No. 2 once the
greenhouse was thermally insulated using a double-layer membrane.
In addition, soil temperature of greenhouse No. 1 fluctuates with
time, which was attributed to the balance between heat storage and
Fig. 11. The estimated ratio of the heat storage and extraction in the soil. extraction in the soil. The soil temperature rises when more heat
stored than extracted, while the soil temperature decreases once a
net thermal energy was extracted from the ground in a daily
Table 4
operation.
The components and capital costs of the GBES system*.
• Compared with a GSHP system or a solar heating system, the capital
Components No. Unit Price
costs of a GBES system are about 6.6 USD/m2 which is about 30%–
Corrugated pipe 200 m 118 USD 80% lower, and the operation costs is 0.009 USD/day/m2 that is
Propeller fan 2 / 85 USD 50%–70% lower of them. In terms of thermal performance, an
Thermal insulation 32.4 m2 41 USD
average COP of the GBES-based greenhouse is 2.8 in Mode A and this
Installation / / 26 USD
Capital costs per unit area / / 6.6 USD/m2 value reaches up to 4.4 in Mode B. In Mode C, the COP of the
Operating cost per unit area 0.009 USD/day/m2 greenhouse increases further up to 5.9. The findings show that the
GBES system associated with operation management was cost-
effective to stabilize the temperature of a greenhouse.

The further studies should be implemented in the areas with high

solar radiation and large temperature difference at day-night to test the
promise of the proposed technology, e.g. in the western China, where
there is great potential to solve the heating issues for planting agricul­
ture or horticulture.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial

interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.

Data availability

No data was used for the research described in the article.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the National Natural Science

Foundation of China (NSFC) for the financial support to this work (No.
Fig. 12. The daily average COP of the GBES-based greenhouse in three oper­
41877200). Thanks also go to the National Center for International
ation modes.
Research on Deep Earth Drilling and Resource Development (No.
DEDRD-2022-06).
using a GBES system to store solar energy in daytime and extract as heat
at night. The greenhouse operating under three modes were tested and
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