The advantage of using a ground source heat pump is its efficiency. For every kWh of electricity used to power the heat pump, about three or four kWh of energy is extracted from the ground. This ratio of heat supplied to the building and the electrical energy consumed is called the Coefficient of Performance (CoP). In the simplest form, think of it as buy one get three free!

The installation will typically consist of a heat pump, ground collector array to absorb energy from the ground, a manifold and manifold pit for joining it all together, circulation pumps to move the energy around the system, various automatic and manual valves, an expansion vessel, buffer tanks to store the energy, a hot water cylinder for heating domestic hot water and a weather compensated control system to make it all work