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Three story residential villa in a larger  building block at the north-west outskirts of Ramallah / Al Bireh, West Bank.

Each block consists of 5 flats with a total  floor space of approx. 340m².
A geothermal heat pump system provides  heating and cooling.

Partners:

Palestinian Energy  Authority zafer.milhem@menr.org
Union Construction  and Investment (UCI) khaled@uci.ps

Supported  by:

Mena Geothermal kalsabawi@gmail.com

The objective of the pilot project is to  increase building construction efficiency and to promote the use of clean,  renewable geothermal energy for heating and cooling at a lower operating cost  than a typical conventional system. It is expected to attract project  developers and investors to geothermal energy and to raise awareness at  government level and among the general public to use this cost and energy  efficient technology.

The geothermal concept installed, involves  a water to air electrical heat pump, using a vertical ground-loop and a duct  distribution system.

Profitability
  From a financial point of view, the pilot  project allows reducing the primary energy consumption by around 25% associated  with energy cost savings of 60% for heating and cooling compared to a  conventional building. The additional investment cost compared to a  conventional building is approx. 40,000 € which leads to a pay pack time of  about 6 years, once experience has been gained.
 

The energy concept of the pilot project is  based on a the use of a geothermal ground water / air heat pump designed for  heating and cooling and on the improvement of the insulation of the building  envelope.

Basic measures with high / moderate cost  efficiency:

 
• Reduction of  heating and cooling load by 20% due to enhanced insulation of the building  envelope
 
• Improved and  airtight windows
 
• High efficient  electrically powered geothermal heat pump with vertical heat exchanger
 
• Expected  Coefficient of Performance (COP) of the heat pump of 5.3 for cooling and 4.0  for heating
 
• Solar collectors  for domestic hot water

The pilot project yields energy cost  savings of 60% for heating and cooling, compared to a conventional building.

There were high learning costs and market  barriers for the first implementation of a geothermal system in Palestine; the private  investor would not have taken this risk without the support of MED-ENEC.

Graph 1
   

Thanks to the experiences gained through  the pilot project, the application of the same technologies in future projects  will only demand about 5% additional cost, with a very attractive pay-back  period of only 6 years.

Graph 2
   

Due to the high economic potential in Palestine and the region,  the private investor UCI has created a new company "MENA Geothermal" in order  to tap this business opportunity. The first project was the equipment of the  new 4,600 m2  UCI headquarters in Ramallah with another geothermal system.