Abstract
Importance of substitute energy has been increasing due to environmental issues and lack of fossil fuels. In addition, heating cost that occupies from 30 to $40\%$ of the total production cost in Korean protected cultivation needs to be reduced for profitability and global competition. But, studying on substitute energy to solve these problems has not been activated for Korean protected cultivation. Therefore, this study was conducted to develop a geothermal heat pump system for cool ing and heat ing of greenhouses at a lower cost than conventional hot air heater and air conditioner. Fundamental test of heat transfer characteristics in soil was conducted by computer simulation and controlled tests for its verification. Based on the results of the theoretical and empirical investigations, an optimum heat pump system was developed and the performance was evaluated for practical use in a greenhouse at the Pusan Horticultural Experiment Station. The system was compared with a conventional hot air heating system through a cucumber growing test and economic feasibility analysis. Results of the application test of the geothermal heat pump showed that with an initial setting of $15^{\circ}C$ the inside temperature of the greenhouse could be maintained between 15 and $17^{\circ}C$. Results of the cucumber growing test showed that there were no significant differences in average height, leaf length, leaf width, number of nods, leaf area, dry weight and yield between the plots wi th the geothermal heat pump system and a conventional hot air heater. Economic feasibility analysis indicated that the variable cost of the hot air heater could be saved $81.2\%$ using the geothermal heat pump system. It was concluded that the geothermal heat pump system might be a pertinent heating and cooling system for greenhouses because of the low operating cost and the use of environment-friendly geothermal energy.
