Energy

Increasingly widespread

Domestic geothermic installations can entirely replace a traditional combustion plant with an autonomous and not just integrative solution (as in the case of solar panels, which do not allow a complete autonomy due to the variability of the energy supplied). They are systems which are particularly suitable to satisfy the needs of small homes, isolated villas and small groups of houses; and also schools, municipality buildings, gyms and swimming-pools. For this reason in many countries, families decide more and more often to use this type of alternative energy for heating. But this system is not used only for homes: in the last years, a true boom of geothermal heat pumps has been noted, also for greenhouse farming, fish farming and balneology (heating in spas and swimming pools) and in many Northern countries also to heat the footpaths and streets, keeping them free from ice in winter. The same system which guarantees heating in winter can be used for cooling during the summer, and a constant production of warm water, with a thermal energy production which does not vary during the course of the year. In our country, domestic geothermics is just beginning to take off, but in many countries it is already a well-established tradition. The countries which are presently leaders in this field, with the largest number of installations, are the USA (with over 600,000 installations), Sweden, China, Switzerland (currently the country with the greatest number of systems pro capite, followed by Finland, Iceland, Germany, France and Russia. It is estimated that a growing number of homes will plan on using domestic geothermics for the conditioning systems in the buildings: this system in fact allows the owners to save a large amount of money in terms of heating bill during the winter, it guarantees warm water and a cool house during the summer, nearly free of cost, and represents a great “global” saving for the environment, in terms of a minor consumption of fossil fuels and the consequent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.