Ground source

[Billboy1]

Is it feasible to power a 1000t grain store drying shed purely on ground source heat pumps ?

 

[Exfarmer]

I would be astonished if the cost of such a large set up would ever be recovered by usage just at harvest time. although ground source heat is ideal for large volume aeration, the sheer quantity of of heat harvesting you would require Would make such a set up incredibly expensive, unless you had a very large warm water spring near.

 

[Billboy1]

What about if it was used at other times of year for drying other bulk products just thinking out loud really ?

 

[Exfarmer]

What about if it was used at other times of year for drying other bulk products just thinking out loud really ?

Only you can answer that, first by working out heat required, then get quotes for a suitable gshp then see what your options are

 

[chickens and wheat]

potential problem is that your using a lot of electric to blow air into the store already, have you enough transformer capacity for a huge array of heat pumps also?

Also heat pumps arnt really 'heat' pumps, more warm pumps, even 45C is pushing it, as efficiencies drop fast if your increasing output temps

 

[Exfarmer]

potential problem is that your using a lot of electric to blow air into the store already, have you enough transformer capacity for a huge array of heat pumps also?

Also heat pumps arnt really 'heat' pumps, more warm pumps, even 45C is pushing it, as efficiencies drop fast if your increasing output temps

Bulk grain drying requires low grade heat, too hot and you get condensation issues at the top of the stack.
I think the OP will get some idea of cost, from your post in another thread, I think you quoted £675 per Kw for larger scale.

 

[sjt01]

Rather than drying using heat to reduce the air humidity (it is low humidity that does the drying, not the heat), why not use a heat pump to dry the air. About 30 years ago there were systems on the market to do that, but now heat pumps are more efficient and common, should be much improved. There was a thread in 2016 titled "grain drying with a dry air generator", use the thread title search

 

[chickens and wheat]

A more realistic output temp ffom th pumps would be 38C.Youd need huge exchanger to transfer any meaning full amount of heat to the huge volume of drying air.
I know floor drying and it needs more heat than youd think to make an Rh difference.
My heat pumps have settled to 3.8:1 efficiency so the principle works well. Just needs careful design to ensure you can get the heat out of the pumps fast enough
Too slow and the pumps will stop untill the return temperatures drop.
At these low water temps the exchangers need to be much bigger than when connected to biomass boiler etc