A Market Perspective On The Policies To Promote Ground Source Heat Pump

Ground source heat pump(GSHP) systems exhibit a great potential for energy saving, and thus are encouraged to be adopted in building complex widely through government legislations and policies in China. However, supporting policies are criticized for their limited impacts on dissemination of such a technology. Based on the previous studies, the author summarize the main reasons for the such ineffectiveness of the policies: first, existing studies are lack of a clear identification of the technology dissemination period; second, there is little study to reveal the relationships among the factors affecting GSHP’s dissemination in market; and third, the legal framework is conflicting and incomplete.Therefore, this research firstly reviewed the GSHP related laws and policies, and identified the existing problems based on studies abroad and domestically.It shows the theory of market mechanism is missing, but necessary to policy makers.Secondly, the data of GSHP related patents authorized by Chinese government is collected, according to which the life-cycle of this technology is depicted based on Logistic model and its development is analyzed. Similarly, the data of ground water heat pump(GWHP) and ground-coupled heat pump(GCHP) are collected separately to identify the characteristic of GSHP dissemination. It is found that GSHP technology has just get into the rapid-diffusion period, with its subordinate technologies imbalanced.Thirdly, this study associates the factors with the market trends based on Evolutionary Game Theory(EGT), and then identifies the expected element settings through the dynamic replicator functions, helping understand the mechanism of GSHP market. Furthermore, the competition between GWHP and GCHP is analyzed based on Bass model. A typical case is then analyzed. With the comparison of the GSHP and conventional HVAC, and also interviews with several experts, various government incentive measures are further discussed.At last, in order to make the incentive measures more feasible, the authors made recommendations for amendments for legislations and policies in order to facilitate dissemination of GSHP in China. It generates the conclusion that the GSHP legal framework should be distinguished from the geothermal energy related law, that policies of certificate, energy contract performance should be improved immediately, and that legal framework of dispute settlement should be established soon.