TASS, September 13. Swiss and Russian scientists found that the efficiency of heat pumps that protect permafrost in northern cities from destruction may be increased by 30-35% if they are used without batteries and if they are controlled by a special adaptive algorithm. This approach will cut the cost of construction in the Arctic, the Russian Science Foundation's press service said.
"We plan to build an installation to stabilize coastal cliffs and to create for the Arctic a technology of construction on light foundations. Since we have greatly reduced the layer of soil that thaws during the heat season, we now may refuse from piles, which means we may accelerate and make cheaper the cost of construction on permafrost," a senior researcher at the Northern (Arctic) Federal University (Arkhangelsk) Egor Loktionov said. The university's press service quoted him as saying so.
Engineers and builders have been trying to combat the problem of thawing permafrost in large cities and near infrastructure facilities by using heat pumps to cool the permafrost. Those pumps use solar energy. As a rule, such systems consist of solar panels, connected batteries that store energy during the day, and Freon cooling systems to stabilize the soil.
Russian scientists and their Swiss colleagues wanted to see how efficiency depends on the pumps' design and operating principles. The scientists created a computer model that reproduced Norway's climate and weather, and assessed how effectively three dozen different approaches to the heat pumps operation could protect the permafrost from destruction.
They found the efficiency of such installations may be increased by 30-35% if batteries and large heat pumps are not used, and also if the operation of a set of several small coolers is controlled by adaptive algorithms. This approach will also further cut the total cost of operating units by 30-40% because of left out expensive batteries and due to using permafrost to store energy.
The only drawback this approach has is that compressor units' operating terms must be increased by about 25-50%, thus increasing their wear rate. The researchers plan to study in the course of practical experiments and in full detail all the disadvantages and advantages of their proposed algorithm to manage heat pumps. The success will pave the way for the practical use of these new approaches.
Unstable permafrost
The problem of rapid permafrost melting in the Arctic due to global warming has become a big problem for many Russian and foreign cities in the Arctic. The degradation causes the destabilization of buildings' foundations and to massive infrastructure problems, which in the coming decades, according to Russian and foreign climate experts, may cost the Russian economy more than 422 billion rubles ($4.5 billion).