SaFEGround

SaFEGround

SaFEGround - Sustainable, Flexible and Efficient Ground Source Energy Systems

Project Team

Imperial College London

Civil & Environmental Engineering: David M G Taborda (PI), Ryan Y W Liu

Chemical Engineering: Christos N Markides, Paul Sapin

Centre for Environmental Policy: Niall Mac Dowell, Matthias Mersch

Business School: Alex Michaelides, Anastasiya Ostrovnaya, Francesca Crucitti

University of Cambridge

Abir Al-Tabbaa, Benyi Cao, Rami Alghamri, Maxine Beh

University of Leeds

Leon Black, Kirthika Subramanian Kala

De Montfort University

Andrew Wright, David Black

Project Outputs

2025

Balwit-Cheung, N., Beh, M., Rengaraju, S., & Al-Tabbaa, A. (2025). Life Cycle Assessment of Ground Improvement Methods to Enhance the Efficiency of Thermo-Active Geostructures Within Transport Infrastructure. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Transportation Geotechnics (ICTG) 2024, Volume 7, Singapore.

Mersch, M., Sapin, P., Corbett, H. C., Utting, M., Mac Dowell, N., & Markides, C. N. (2025). Household and whole-system assessments of distributed heat pump deployment for domestic heat decarbonisation in the UK. Energy, 330, 136903.

Olympios, A. V., Mersch, M., Kourougianni, F., Markides, C. N., Pantaleo, A. M., Kyprianou, A., & Georghiou, G. E. (2025). A stochastic optimisation framework for integrating photovoltaic systems, heat pumps, and energy storage in buildings. Applied Thermal Engineering, 278, 127312. 

Provost, A., Sanchez Fernandez, J., Sapin, P., & Taborda, D. M. G. (2025). An approach for including heat pump performance in the design of thermo-active piles. 3rd International Conference on Energy Geotechnics, Paris.

Sanchez Fernandez, J., Provost, A., Ruiz López, A., & Taborda, D. M. G. (2025). A data-driven approach to predicting the long-term thermal performance of thermo-active piles 3rd International Conference on Energy Geotechnics, Paris, France. 

Taborda, D. M. G., Alghamri, R., Al-Tabbaa, A., Black, L., Cao, B., Crucitti, F., Liu, R., Mac Dowell, N., Markides, C., Mersch, M., Michaelides, A., Ostrovnaya, A., Sapin, P., Subramanian Kala, K., & Wright, A. (2025). Optimising the design and delivery of ground-source energy systems through interdisciplinary research. 3rd International Conference on Energy Geotechnics, Paris, France.

2024

Cao, B., Wang, X., & Al-Tabbaa, A. (2024). Improvement of Soil Thermal Conductivity with Graphite-Based Conductive Cement Grouts. Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, 150(10), 04024088.  

Crucitti, F. and Mersch, M. and Michaelides, A. and Ostrovnaya, A. (2024) Green Technology Adoption over the Life Cycle (November 13, 2024).

Liu, R. Y. W., & Taborda, D. M. G. (2024a). The effects of thermal interference on the thermal performance of thermo-active pile groups. Renewable Energy, 225, 120357.  

Liu, R. Y. W., & Taborda, D. M. G. (2024b). A methodology for incorporating thermal interference in the design of thermo-active pile groups. Geomechanics for Energy and the Environment, 39, 100575. 

Mersch, M., Sapin, P., Suthagar, A., Wright, J., Mac Dowell, N., & Markides, C. N. (2024). Household and whole system assessments of ground-source heat pump deployment for domestic heat decarbonisation in the UK. In: ECOS 2024.

Mersch, M., Caton, P., Markides, C. N., & Mac Dowell, N. (2024). Energy import security in optimal decarbonization pathways for the UK energy system. Cell Reports Sustainability, 1(10).  

Olympios, A. V., Sapin, P., Mersch, M., Maghrabi, A. M., & Markides, C. N. (2024). A review of recent progress in the design and integration of domestic heat pumps. Next Energy, 5, 100163.  

2023

Liu, R. Y. W., Taborda, D. M. G. (2023a) Thermal performance of thermo-active pile groups. 10th European Conference on Numerical Methods in Geotechnical Engineering NUMGE2023, London, UK.

Liu, R. Y. W., Taborda, D. M. G. (2023b) Effect of pile spacing on the thermal performance of thermo-active pile groups. Symposium on Energy Geotechnics SEG23, Delft, Netherlands.

Liu, R. Y. W., Taborda, D. M. G. (2023c) A simplified methodology for determining the thermal performance of thermo-active piles, Environmental Geotechnics.

Mersch, M., Markides, C. N., Mac Dowell, N. (2023) The impact of the energy crisis on the UK’s net-zero transition. iScience, 26:4, 106491. 

Sapin, P., Olympios, A.V., Mersch, M., Markides, C.N. (2023) Design and operational optimisation of an integrated thermal energy storage ground-source heat pump with time-varying electricity prices. 14th IEA Heat Pump Conference, Chicago, USA.

Taborda, D. M. G., Bortolotto, M. S., Liu, R. Y. W. (2023) Influence of pipe arrangement and improved thermal conductivity on the response of thermo-active piles. 10th European Conference on Numerical Methods in Geotechnical Engineering NUMGE2023, London, UK.