Groundsource also works with vertical boreholes so the area of land required is actually quite small, if loads of these type of systems were installed then the price of boring would probably fall to less than that of digging lots of trenches on the surface.
There are also airsource heat pumps which work almost exactly like air-conditioning units in reverse, removing heat from the air outside and putting it inside (as hot water). These work even with air temps below 0C but are obviously less efficient than GSHP but much cheaper and easier to install.
These are the kind of decent energy saving thing people should have been persuaded to install years ago - not pathetic wind/solar where 1kW is about as good as they get for residential installations. With GSHP you could put in 6kW of electric and get 18kW of heat out constantly. A 12kW wind turbine would be huge in comparison both physically and cost-wise.
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Groundsource also works with vertical boreholes so the area of land required is actually quite small, if loads of these type of systems were installed then the price of boring would probably fall to less than that of digging lots of trenches on the surface.
There are also airsource heat pumps which work almost exactly like air-conditioning units in reverse, removing heat from the air outside and putting it inside (as hot water). These work even with air temps below 0C but are obviously less efficient than GSHP but much cheaper and easier to install.
These are the kind of decent energy saving thing people should have been persuaded to install years ago - not pathetic wind/solar where 1kW is about as good as they get for residential installations. With GSHP you could put in 6kW of electric and get 18kW of heat out constantly. A 12kW wind turbine would be huge in comparison both physically and cost-wise.