| Title | 15 years of operating rules & research to minimize induced seismicity in RLP (Southwest Germany) - Application on a regional scale? |
|---|---|
| Authors | Bernd Schmidt |
| Year | 2026 |
| Conference | World Geothermal Congress |
| Keywords | induced seismicity, trafic light system, governance rules |
| Abstract | Over the past 15 years, several cases of induced seismicity related to deep geothermal projects have been recorded in Rhineland-Palatinate region. For instance, a noticeable earthquake with a local magnitude of 2.7 occurred in Landau on August 15, 2009, followed by additional events in September 2009. Due to the application of the stricter operating rules, there has been a decrease in induced seismic activities associated with deep geothermal energy projects over the last 15 years. The traffic light system applied to deep geothermal energy in Rhineland-Palatinate has proven effective in practice.This system has been successfully implemented for many years in the geothermal plants in Landau and Insheim. The traffic light system applied to deep geothermal energy in Rhineland-Palatinate is a tiered plan for monitoring and managing induced seismic activities that may result from geothermal installations. This system specifies specific measures to be taken when certain thresholds of Peak Ground Velocity (PGV) are reached or exceeded. It includes six levels, ranging from no response to the shutdown of the power plant. Calculated deterministic shake maps (Research joint project SEIGER) showing ground velocity for the seismic event in Insheim now can be used to verify the traffic light system, once without considering the local geology and once con-sidering the local geology. By introducing an advanced detection algorithm (stacking and ML-EQT), also known as a LIDECT detector, the approximately 900 events from the period 2013-2023 could be expanded to a number of approximately 3.000. |