A Review of Ground Heat Exchangers for Cooling Application in the Malaysian Climate

The ground heat exchanger (GHE) is one of the energy sources that has been identified
since the 1970s which is able to produce sustainable energy for cooling which is in
passive side. GHEs are widely implemented around the world, especially in European
countries and a few Asian countries. In Malaysia, application of GHE is still considered
as a new passive cooling approach in building energy reduction. Therefore, this paper
reviews several important ways of implementing GHE in order to supply passive
cooling for any application. The review covers general implementation of the GHE for
thermal comfort and agricultural greenhouse cooling. The ground temperature variation
used in different researches is also reviewed in this paper as an important part of
identifying potential GHE implementations. Design and performance aspects of the
GHE are also reviewed. Finally, this paper summarizes the potential and benefit of GHE
implementation in the Malaysian climate for cooling applications to reduce the energy
used in buildings and greenhouse gas emission.