The experimental performance of small-sized ground-coupled heat pump (GCHP) is researched intensively. However, there are little data documenting the operation performance of existing large-sized GCHP system. We presented the actual performance measurement of a GCHP installed for apartment buildings in Wuhan, Hubei province, P. R. China. The system was constructed with a closed vertical typed ground heat exchanger with a total pipe length of 32 000 m. During one year, various operating parameters were monitored, including the outdoor temperature, the flow rate, the electrical consumption, and the water temperature. The seasonal coefficients of performances of the heat pumps and the system based on the measured data were found to be 4.01 and 2.96 in the cooling season, and 3.54 and 2.86 in the heating season, respectively. The GCHP system was more economical than the air-source room air conditioner in the energy efficiency which was increased by 29% in cooling mode and 50% in heating mode. There was an obvious heat imbalance of soil between the injection rate and the extraction rate in the residential GCHP system operation.
