| Title | HEATSTORE SWITZERLAND: New Opportunities of Geothermal District Heating Network Sustainable Growth by High Temperature Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage Development |
|---|---|
| Authors | GUGLIELMETTI L., ALT-EPPING P., BIRDSELL D., DE OLIVEIRA FILHO F., DIAMOND L., DRIESNER T., ERUTEYA O., HOLLMULLER P., MAKHLOUFI Y., MARTIN F., MEIER P., MEYER M., MINDEL J., MOSCARIELLO A., NAWRATIL DE BONO C, QUIQUEREZ L, SAAR M., SOHRABI R, SPRING U., VALLEY B., VAN DEN HEUVEL D., WANNER C |
| Year | 2020 |
| Conference | World Geothermal Congress |
| Keywords | HEATSTORE, district heating, Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage, Reservoir modelling, Energy System, GEothermie2020 |
| Abstract | HEASTORE is a GEOTHERMICA ERA-NET co-funded project aiming at developing High Temperature (~25°C to ~90°C) Underground Thermal Energy Storage (HT-UTES) technologies by lowering the cost, reducing risks, improving the performance, and to optimize heat network demand side management at 6 new pilot and demonstration sites, two of whom in Switzerland, and 8 case studies. The European HEATSTORE consortium includes 24 contributing partners from 9 countries with complementary expertise and roles. The consortium is composed of a mix of scientific research institutes and private companies. The Swiss consortium developing HEATSTORE Switzerland is composed by two industrial partners (Services Industriels de Geneva SIG and Energie Wasser Bern EWB) and four academic partners (Universities of Geneva, Bern, Neuchâtel and ETH Zurich). This paper presents the results of the first year of activities for the Swiss projects. The two Swiss pilot projects are supported by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy and aim at developing two sites for Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) in the cantons of Geneva and Bern to convert industrial waste heat into a resource. The development approach covers subsurface characterization, energy system analysis, surface implementation design, legal framework improvement and business modelling to ensure the complete sustainability of the projects. This approach is supported by large industrial investments for subsurface characterization. Two wells down to 1200m in depth are drilled in the Geneva area to tap potential targets in the carbonate Mesozoic units and three wells down to 500m in depth target the Tertiary Molassic sediments in the Bern area. These wells serve as subsurface exploration and characterization and provide data used for detailed THMC modelling to assess the thermal energy storage potential at the two sites. The results of the modelling are combined to energy system analysis to quantify the waste heat availability and heat demand and hence optimise the production and injection operations. The outcomes of the coupled assessment serve as a tool to design the integration of the new installations into the district-heating network. Legal framework improvements, based on the whole technical evaluation and on the best-practice sharing with the other European partners, will be an enabling tool to accelerate the implementation of the HT-ATES systems, while business modelling helps calibrate the economic feasibility of the projects and help industrial partners to plan future investments. |