Summary	The aim of the project LaserJetDrilling is the development of a novel drilling process that can be used to realize nationwide electricity and heat generation from deep geothermal energy in Germany. For this purpose, a novel drilling method is developed, which uses high-energy laser radiation to increase the driving speeds. As part of the project, the Fraunhofer IPT is developing the optics module with water-jet-guided laser radiation, which will be integrated into a conventional boring head. To implement this approach, the development of a laser beam source with adapted beam properties (IPG) and a special water treatment and promotion (KAMAT) is necessary. These developments are core components of the optical system developed by the IPT. After successful commissioning of the optical system, the integration of the optical module into the drill head takes place. Finally, the demonstrator drill head with integrated optics module is tested on a GZB test bench and the technology is evaluated.
Organization(s)	(#1) Fraunhofer-Institut für Produktionstechnologie (IPT) (#2) Herrenknecht Vertical GmbH (#3) IPG Laser GmbH (#4) KAMAT Pumpen GmbH (#5) Hochschule Bochum
Country/Region	Germany
Contact Person	Florian Schmidt
Program Owner	Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy
Website/Email	http://www.geothermie-zentrum.de/abteilungen/advanced-drilling-technologies/projekte/laserjetdrilling-entwicklung-einer-wasserstrahlgefuehrten-laserbohrtechnologie-zur-effizienten-erschliessung-geothermischer-ressourcen.html
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2014-12-01
Project End	2018-05-31
Total Budget (€)	4 249 677€
Funding Budget (€)	3 075 447€
Funding Scheme	6. Energy Research Program - Deep Geothermal
Project Category	Integration and Operation, Policy and Economy

Summary	The electric impulse method (EIV) offers an energy-efficient and wear-free alternative to conventional tools. Previous research has involved the implementation and successful testing of a drill head consisting of a surge voltage source (up to 600 kV) and 12 ¼ drilling electrodes, with the goal of developing the appropriate in-hole power supply and in situ the overall system The starting point is the development of electrodes for water-based rinses based on the results of the previous work, while at the same time optimizing the overall system in terms of rinsing properties and the most thorough possible bottom hole cleaning, resulting in the prototype of the boring head used for the In The power parameters of the prototype are used to develop and implement the power supply.
Organization(s)	(#1) Technische Universität Dresden (#2) BAUER Maschinen GmbH (#3) Thomas Werner Industrielle Elektronik e.Kfm. (#4) BITSz electronics GmbH (#5) Baker Hughes INTEQ GmbH (#6) ILEAG e.V. Institut für leichte elektrische Antriebe und Generatoren
Country/Region	Germany
Contact Person	Dipl.-Ing. Erik Anders
Program Owner	Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy
Website/Email	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1FIRav_shI
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2015-01-01
Project End	2018-06-30
Total Budget (€)	3 429 995€
Funding Budget (€)	2 588 518€
Funding Scheme	6. Energy Research Program - Deep Geothermal
Project Category	Integration and Operation, Policy and Economy

Summary	In 2015 VITO started with an exploratory drilling to a depth of 3 km at the Balmatt site in Mol. Two years later the geothermal energy plant was launched. A heat grid transports heat to the buildings of VITO, SCK and BelgoProcess, heating grids to the communities Dessel and Mol are planned. It is the first succesfull deep geothermal project with district heating in Flanders. This first project shows the possibilities for deep geothermal energy in the Kempen (NorthEast of Flanders).
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Flanders (Belgium)
Contact Person	Dries Vos – VITO – +32 14 33 58 28 – [email protected]
Program Owner	Minister of Economy and Innovation
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	0000-00-00
Project End	0000-00-00
Total Budget (€)	0€
Funding Budget (€)	0€
Funding Scheme	VLAIO, VEKA (call Groene warmte)
Project Category	Resource Development, Integration and Operation, Sustainability

Summary	District heating network from the Balmatt site to the city of Dessel. Janssen Pharmaceutica constructs a 4th generation heating network sourced with deep geothermal energy.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Flanders (Belgium)
Contact Person	Marijke Anthuenis
Program Owner	Minister of Energy
Website/Email	http://www.janssen.com/belgium/nl/geothermie
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2018-03-01
Project End	2020-06-30
Total Budget (€)	0€
Funding Budget (€)	0€
Funding Scheme	Call Groene warmte (renewable heat)
Project Category

Summary	SPE will develop methods, which work more cost-effective than today’s exploration procedures and provide more refined decision criteria for a risk-minimized positioning of geothermal power stations. The geomathematical concept will be realized in such a way that seismic pre-information will be left out and research results become specifically obvious for areas which are hardly detectable in exploration because of intensive anthropogenic influences. As exemplary test areas the Saarland and the domain of Groß Schönebeck will be chosen for prototypical investigation. All in all, the scientific objective is to deduce an integrative multiscale combination of satellite-based downward continuation methods with signal decorrelation mechanisms reflecting airborne and/or terrestrial data potential information under the particular geological demands to determine natural fault zones and suitable layer structures for a cost- economical production of energy and heat in deep geothermics. 1 Collection of all available records of the gravimetric and magnetic field, all seismic information and borehole data for the Saarland 2 Formatting of records 3 Evaluation of global gradiometer data of the gravimetric and magnetic field from satellite measurements 4 Evaluation of terrestrial measurements including an overview of geothermal analyzable data 5 Global/regional/local synopsis of all information via a geomathematic multiscale method for reconstruction/decomposition of geopotential signatures, their decorrelation based on geothermal evaluable band structures, testing and if necessary, application in consistent seismic tomography methods 6 Deduction of faults and anomalous rock formations such as hot zones and magma chambers 7 Modeling of tectonic fault zones and crack propagation 8 Comparative quality study of potential methods in combination with existing and still to be performed 3D seismics of the GFZ Potsdam for the planned project in the area of Groß Schönebeck.
Organization(s)	(#1) CBM Gesellschaft für Consulting, Business und Management mbH
Country/Region	Germany
Contact Person
Program Owner	Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy
Website/Email	https://www.cbm-ac.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/SPE-Flyer.pdf
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2016-01-05
Project End	2019-04-30
Total Budget (€)	1 782 091€
Funding Budget (€)	1 069 255€
Funding Scheme	6. Energy Research Program - Deep Geothermal
Project Category

Summary	The aim of this research project is the design and testing of a mobile rig that will allow a safe and rapid change of deep-hanging submersible pumps used for geothermal energy production in the Bavarian Molasse Basin and other locations.
Organization(s)	(#1) SWM Services GmbH (#2) MAX STREICHER GmbH
Country/Region	Germany
Contact Person	via NCP
Program Owner	Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2016-06-01
Project End	2018-12-31
Total Budget (€)	3 343 833€
Funding Budget (€)	1 484 799€
Funding Scheme	6. Energy Research Program - Deep Geothermal
Project Category	Integration and Operation

Summary	Overall goal of this joint project with participants LIAG, GZB und Storengy is cataloging the German geothermal resources in play type categories, emphasizing on geological analogs and defining the target reservoir as part of a geological system including heat source and fluid/heat flow paths. Applying the play type concept will ultimately lead to geoscientifically well-grounded conceptual models and a globally harmonized geothermal resources assessment. LIAG’s work will focus on: (I) Definition and characterization of play type "extensional terrains” comparing Trebur/Upper Rhine Graben and Mbaka/East African Rift; (II) Definition and characterization of play type "foreland basins” comparing Molasse Basin/Germany and Alberta Basin/Canada; (III) Verification of play type characteristics, in cooperation with associated project partner Storengy; (IV) Desig of the first international play type e-learning platform; (V) Development of the first national play type atlas and implementation of play type categories into the German geothermal information system GeotIS.
Organization(s)	(#1) LIAG (#2) Ruhr University Bochum
Country/Region	Germany
Contact Person	via NCP
Program Owner	Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy
Website/Email	https://www.liag-hannover.de/relaunch/forschung/projekte/playtype.html
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2017-08-01
Project End	2020-07-31
Total Budget (€)	1 046 490€
Funding Budget (€)	1 046 490€
Funding Scheme	6. Energy Research Program - Deep Geothermal
Project Category	Identification and Assessment

Summary	Recent volcanism (ca 7000 years); still active although without historical eruptions; Existence of warm water; Waters rich in CO2, of probable volcanic origin and a favorable fracture framework was suggestive of a heat source enough to induce rocks/water with significant temperatures, at depths likely to be exploitable. This setting makes of Madeira an intermediate and innovative case study between classical volcanic geothermal systems and enhanced geothermal systems. So, in 2010 a contract between LNEG and EEM (Madeira Electricity Company) was set to perform the first phase of evaluation of the geothermal potential of Madeira Island, for renewable energy. The main objectifs of the project were to obtain information to find areas with greater potential for occurrence of thermal systems and their sources at relatively low depths in order to point out the most favorable area(s) to the existence of exploitable geothermal(s) reservoir(s). This was achieved by geological (structural geology, mineral chemistry, geochronology), hydrogeological and geophysical (Magnetometry and Gravimetry, Thermometry, Surface-Wave Tomography) studies.
Organization(s)	(#1) LNEG - National Laboratory for Energy and Geology (#2) EEM-Electricity Company of Madeira Island (#3) IDL (#4) EU
Country/Region	Portugal
Contact Person	Rita Caldeira
Program Owner	EEM - Electricity Company of Madeira Island
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2010-08-05
Project End	2013-11-25
Total Budget (€)	0€
Funding Budget (€)	0€
Funding Scheme	Contract Service
Project Category	Identification and Assessment

Summary	The project INCREASING THE CAPACITY OF CDI IN RAAL BY ENDOWING THE TESTING LABORATORY WITH AN ELECTRODINAMIC VIBRATION SYSTEM aims to achieve a new modern product as endowed and technically economical to solve specific services: of the heat exchanger products, in the conditions of heat exchange integration, pressure resistance and working agents with the technical specifications of the operation. Corresponding to global trends, it complements the virtual simulation of the product from the project stage with thermal testing, fluid flow and mechanical under laboratory conditions, simulating the real operating conditions of the heat exchangers on the machines / installations on which are mounted. The product thus developed will integrate a complex RAAL testing laboratory by standardized European methods.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Romania
Contact Person	[email protected]
Program Owner	Ministerul Economiei (ME)
Website/Email	https://www.raal.ro/page.php?id1=2&id2=8&id3=15
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2013-12-05
Project End	2015-05-28
Total Budget (€)	0€
Funding Budget (€)	0€
Funding Scheme	POSCCE-A2-O2.3.2-2013-2
Project Category

Summary	IceSUSTAIN is the Iceland-based part of the larger SUSTAIN international ICDP project, focused on the study of the birth and evolution of volcanic islands by integrating volcanology, geophysics, geochemistry, mineralogy and microbiology. The principal task of SUSTAIN is to extract two cores from the young volcanic island of Surtsey (formed in 1963-1967): a 210 m-long vertical core and a 300 m-long inclined core. The details of the internal structure and thermal history of this type locality of Surtseyan volcanism will be studied by defining the lithology and 3-D structure of the island and how its internal temperature has evolved since its beginnings in 1963, and how the surface manifestations of geothermal activity have evolved since the eruption. The characteristics of decade-scale geothermal systems in rift-zone oceanic settings will be explored further through detailed analyses of hydrothermal-seawater-rock interactions, basalt devitrification and the resulting mineral assemblages. The presence and diversity of the microbiota at different temperature conditions found in interior of the island will be explored. Biological samples will be processed to gain insight into the in situ microbiological colonization and function in Surtsey deposits. The vertical hole will in future be used as the Surtsey Subsurface Observatory for monitoring, sampling and in situ experimental research describing the long term evolution of microbiological-seawater-rock-interactions.
Organization(s)	(#1) Science Institute - University of Iceland (#2) ISOR-Iceland Geosurvey (#3) The Icelandic Institute of Natural History (#4) MATIS (#5) University of California, Berkeley (#6) University of Wurzburg (#7) University of Otago (#8) University of California, Davis (#9) University of Oslo, Natural History Museum (#10) Universitetet i Bergen, Centre for Geobiology (#11) Universitat Bremen
Country/Region	Iceland
Contact Person	Magnús Tumi Guðmundsson
Program Owner	The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	0000-00-00
Project End	0000-00-00
Total Budget (€)	2 112 000€
Funding Budget (€)	1 114 000€
Funding Scheme	Rannsóknasjóður - The Icelandic Research Fund - Grant of Excellence
Project Category

Summary	The main goal of this project is to develop production process for growing and utilizing algae isolated from Lake Mývatn in a effective way.The focus will be on multiple uses of geothermal energy, both for using the heat source and the gases for the cultivation. With the production of natural products and practicality in mind and at the same tima use the natural resource whitch this region has to offer. The project will focus on diatoms, goldenalgae and Cyanobacteria which produces oils, pectin and silica. Conditions in Lake Mývatn area indicate that there is a better potential to cultivate algae. There is a short distance to the electrical- and thermal energy, not fully utilized today. The water flowing into lake Mývatn has the features to support algae blooming and by utilizing thermal energy to preliminary dry the biomass, will save substantial costs for the transport of raw materials that can not be completed on site.
Organization(s)	(#1) MýSköpun ehf (#2) Akureyri University (#3) Landsvirkjun
Country/Region	Iceland
Contact Person	Arnheiður Rán Almarsdóttir
Program Owner	Ministry of Industries and Innovation
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2015-01-01
Project End	2016-12-31
Total Budget (€)	299 000€
Funding Budget (€)	109 000€
Funding Scheme	Technology Development Fund, Sproud
Project Category

Summary	The project aims to use bioleaching and magnetic separation for iron removal, in order to improve usability of Icelandic minerals, in particular for use as a basis for clay and porcelain products. We will identify sources of materials and develop methods for refining minerals without the use of polluting chemicals. The use of soil bacteria for iron removal can also make Icelandic minerals suitable for other industries, such as glass production.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Iceland
Contact Person	Kristján Leósson
Program Owner	Ministry of Industries and Innovation
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	0000-00-00
Project End	0000-00-00
Total Budget (€)	437 000€
Funding Budget (€)	350 000€
Funding Scheme	Technology Development Fund
Project Category

Summary	The motivation for this project is to reduce risk in geothermal development projects and support better decision making. Geothermal exploration is based on collection of large amount of data from geophysical, geochemical, and geological surveys which are used as input for constructing models of the geothermal reservoir. The project intends to combine these surveys through a data fusion inversion process to create conceptual reservoir models. The aim of this project is to use statistical inference to construct maximum likelihood models of geothermal reservoirs and to use probabilistic methods to develop tools for quantification of uncertainty in low and high temperature hydrothermal systems. The purpose of the project is to improve the accuracy of reservoir models that are vital to reducing risk of geothermal projects, and to support better decision making for exploration and development of the reservoirs. Case studies in Iceland will be performed to validate the models.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Iceland
Contact Person	María Sigríður Guðjónsdóttir
Program Owner	Ministry of Industries and Innovation
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	0000-00-00
Project End	0000-00-00
Total Budget (€)	576 000€
Funding Budget (€)	340 000€
Funding Scheme	Technology Development Fund
Project Category

Summary	The project consists in geological mapping and a detailed study of the bedrock geology of the area around Mt. Torfufell, which is an extinct central volcano of Neogene age, located in the southernmost part of Eyjafjarðardalur in Northern Iceland. The aim of the project is to add to the understanding of the stratigraphy of the area, to improve the knowledge of its genesis and subsequent geological history, and in particular to throw light on the following questions, which are the main working theories of the project: - What information will age determinations provide regarding the build-up rate, development and lifespan of the Torfufell central volcano? - Does an unconformity, between lavas from the extinct Húnaflói volcanic zone and the currently active Northern volcanic zone, lie in the area? If so, what information will age determinations provide on its position and the hiatus length? How can the unconformity improve our understanding of the build-up of the strata pile? Is there any difference between the chemical composition of lavas from a nearly extinct volcanic zone and a newly active volcanic zone? - Are the Torfufell and the Tinná volcanoes the same volcano? The project commenced with field work in the summer of 2015 which is currently being continued.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Iceland
Contact Person	Sigurveig Árnadóttir
Program Owner	The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	0000-00-00
Project End	0000-00-00
Total Budget (€)	121 000€
Funding Budget (€)	121 000€
Funding Scheme	Rannsóknasjóður - The Icelandic Research Fund - Doctoral student grant
Project Category

Summary
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Ireland
Contact Person
Program Owner	SEAI
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	0000-00-00
Project End	0000-00-00
Total Budget (€)	0€
Funding Budget (€)	0€
Funding Scheme	Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland
Project Category

Summary
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Ireland
Contact Person
Program Owner	SEAI
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	0000-00-00
Project End	0000-00-00
Total Budget (€)	0€
Funding Budget (€)	0€
Funding Scheme	Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland
Project Category

Summary	In the Netherlands geothermal energy has only been produced from wells up to a depth of approximately 3.000 m. Water on a depth of 4.000 meters and deeper, however, holds much more potential for this type of energy. As a result of the higher temperature, it can not only be used to produce high-temperature heat, even without having to be heated any further, but also electricity. Studies show that (very) deep geothermal carries the potential to render the ernergy consumption of 20% of the Dutch households more sustainable. In the municipality of Westland, where the demonstration project is located, deep geothermal can cover more than 80% of the heat demand. Demo Trias Geothermiedoublet is the first project that aims to demonstrate the high potential of (very) deep geothermal energy (> 4 km) in the Netherlands. It is located in the Greenport Westland-Oostland area, well known for its greenhouse horticulture. The geothermal energy from the project wil heat from 120 up to 200 hectares of greenhouses and in addition the grounds of the FloraHolland auction in Naaldwijk. The use of deep geothermal not only increases the sustainability of the businesses involved. It also renders them less dependent on volatile energy prices and thus more competitive.
Organization(s)	(#1) Trias Westland BV
Country/Region	Netherlands
Contact Person	Marco van Soerland
Program Owner	Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy (Ministerie van EZ&K)
Website/Email	https://www.triaswestland.nl/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2015-05-01
Project End	2018-08-01
Total Budget (€)	10 759 090€
Funding Budget (€)	1 800 000€
Funding Scheme	Demonstration projects on Energy Innovation (Subsidie demonstratie energie-innovatie (DEI))
Project Category	Identification and Assessment, Integration and Operation

Summary	TRECIT aims to reduce the capital expenditure costs of deep drilling operations by the introduction of the Enhanced Casing Installation technology (ECI), a time-saving and risk reducing casing while drilling technology.The project will result in a full geothermal doublet of which the more risky reservoir sections were installed wth ECI technology. Instead of drilling the reservoir section in the conventional way and installing the casing in a sepearate run, the drilling operation and the installation of the (steel) casing wil be executed simultaneously. This does not only save time. Also the reservoir section remains protected by casing all the time. The advantages of this new technology are most outspoken in limestone formations, where fractures and ""karstified"" zones are common and can lead to serious problems with conventional ways of drilling and completing the well. TRECIT is the first in a series of pilot projects concerned with the Enhanced Casing Installation (ECI) technology.The second is CRECCIT (Cost Reducing Enhanced Composite Casing Installation Technology). This concerns the demonstration of lightweight corrosion resistant High StrengthComposite Casing (HSCC), which aims to enable installations with smaller and less expensive drilling rigs and significally reduce the need voor service and maintenance.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Netherlands
Contact Person	Gert Jan van Og
Program Owner	Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy (Ministerie van EZ&K)
Website/Email	www.californie.nu; www.akiet.com; www.wellengineering.nl; www.huismanwelltechnology.com
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2015-09-15
Project End	2016-09-30
Total Budget (€)	3 045 470€
Funding Budget (€)	1 404 119€
Funding Scheme	Energy Innovation - Renewable Energy (Hernieuwbare Energie)
Project Category	Resource Development

Summary	"Radial jetting is a potential stimulation technique to improve the performance of injectors and producer wells. With radial jet drilling, several open hole laterals are jetted from the main well bore, which enhance the connectivity of the well to the surrounding rock and thereby the well productivity and/or injectivity. The overall goal of HIPE is to validate and demonstrate that radial jetting has the potential to increase geothermal production at reduced costs for three geothermal reservoirs in the Netherlands. The results of the project will be: - Six field tests on radial jetting and performance increase of 4 injectors and 2 producers in three different Dutch geothermal reservoirs. - A site-specific geological model of the reservoirs, dedicated for jetting predictions. - A set of optimized reservoir simulations for six wells. - Estimations of performance improvement of wells in the same reservoir types - Predictions and procedures for controlling sand production with special focus on HAL site/Delft Sandstone. - Best-practice guidelines for future jetting applications - A template project plan for future jetting jobs, based upon lessons-learned from the field tests. A second aim of the project is to reduce costs of this operation by integrating the lessons learned into one workflow that can be applied to different types of geothermal reservoirs. The ultimate economic aim of the project is to deliver a significant contribution to cost reduction for geothermal heat for the major Dutch (greenhouse) regions."
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Netherlands
Contact Person	Ronald den Boogert
Program Owner	Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy (Ministerie van EZ&K)
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2017-06-15
Project End	2018-12-31
Total Budget (€)	6 244 691€
Funding Budget (€)	3 830 368€
Funding Scheme	Energy Innovation - Renewable Energy (Hernieuwbare Energie)
Project Category	Resource Development

Summary	This research project deals with the brittle failure of rocks using the theory of the critical distances (tcd). The small discontinuities or defects, like microcracks, pores, grain boundaries, etc. Of the intact rock cause stress concentrations around them, leading to crack initiation and propagation, and ultimately, brittle failure. This problem is of interest for several fields within civil, mining and energy engineering, for instance for the exploitation of geothermal energy. This project explores the feasibility of developing a new framework to study rock fracture under mixed mode based on the tcd, namely the point method. This method studies fracture initiation using a local criterion based on the stress field around the defect tip, particularly the tension at a certain distance from the defect tip (at half of the critical distance, which is a material property). The novelty of the present project lies in the fact that the tcd is applicable under tensile stress fields (mode i), but its validity and necessary modifications under compressive and shear stress fields, which are common in rocks and lead to mixed modes of fracture, are unknown. Starting from some new ideas that could allow the application of the point method to mixed modes of fracture, an analytical model and its validation through intensive and systematic laboratory testing will be developed. The development and validation of the new framework for rock fracture will be done at room temperature and at higher temperatures, as those common in geothermal applications. Based on the tcd, the project also tryies to justify the use of the 3-point bending test, which is not use in rocks for not good enough reasons, using blunt notches to characterize the fracture toughness, following the same procedure as in other materials (e.g. Metals, polymers). Ultimately, a physical meaning of the critical distance for rocks will be sought, trying to correlate it with the grain size. Consequently, different rock lithologies will be tested, and for one of them, namely sandstone, different grain sizes will be studied. The project will improve the reliability and will reduce the financial costs of the drilling operations, which is the item of highest cost in the geothermal energy projects. This will promote the use of geothermal energy as a safe, productive and clean energy.
Organization(s)	(#1) UNIVERSIDAD DE CANTABRIA
Country/Region	Spain
Contact Person	CASTRO GONZALEZ, JORGE
Program Owner	MINECO - AEI
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2016-01-01
Project End	2018-12-31
Total Budget (€)	133 100€
Funding Budget (€)	133 100€
Funding Scheme	Grant
Project Category	Resource Development

Summary	IMAGEARTH PROJECT IS FOCUSED ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF ADVANCED NUMERICAL METHODS FOR THE PROPER SIMULATION AND INVERSION OF GEOPHYSICAL ELECTROMAGNETIC (EM) MEASUREMENTS. BOTH ON-SURFACE DATA (MAGNETOTELLURICS, AND CONTROLLED SOURCE ELECTROMAGNETICS) AND BOREHOLE MEASUREMENTS (ACQUIRED WITH THE MOST ADVANCED LATEROLOG, LOGGING-WHILE-DRILLING, AND GEOSTEERING TOOLS) WILL BE CONSIDERED IN THIS PROJECT. FOR THE INVERSE SIMULATIONS, WE WILL INVESTIGATE FUNCTIONALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF TWO POPULAR APPROACHES, GRADIENT-BASED AND BAYESIAN, AND EVALUATE THE POTENTIAL FOR COMBINING THOSE APPROACHES IN HYBRID METHODS. THE USE OF BAYESIAN METHODS WILL ALSO ALLOW US TO PRODUCE MORE RELIABLE UNCERTAINTY ESTIMATES THAT GO BEYOND A SIMPLE LINEARIZATION OF THE COST FUNCTIONAL AROUND A LOCAL MINIMA. FOR THE FORWARD SIMULATIONS, WE WILL FOCUS ON A NOVEL DIMENSIONALLY ADAPTIVE METHOD THAT EFFICIENTLY ENABLES TO COMBINE SUBDOMAINS OF DIFFERENT SPATIAL DIMENSIONALITY COUPLED VIA A TRADITIONAL GALERKIN FORMULATION. TO SPEED UP COMPUTATIONS FOR PROBLEMS WITH A LARGE NUMBER OF RIGHT HAND SIDES (SOURCES) SUCH AS THOSE NATURALLY APPEARING IN GEOPHYSICAL EM IMAGING, WE WILL CONSIDER “SOLVER BASED DISCRETIZATIONS”, WHICH WE HAVE RECENTLY SHOWN TO PROVIDE FAST SIMULATIONS. WE WILL ALSO APPLY NON-FITTING GRIDS, WHICH MAY NOT ONLY EXPEDITE AND SIMPLIFY THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SUCH METHODS, BUT ALSO FACILITATE SIMULATIONS ASSOCIATED TO INVERSE PROBLEMS WITH VARYING RESISTIVITY DISTRIBUTIONS (MATERIAL PROPERTIES) BETWEEN TWO SUBSEQUENT ITERATIONS. TO CONTROL THE DISCRETIZATION ERROR, WE WILL EMPLOY AN ADAPTIVE METHOD RECENTLY DEVELOPED IN OUR GROUP BASED ON USING UNCONVENTIONAL ERROR REPRESENTATIONS. WHILE MOST STUDIES WILL BE PERFORMED ON THE FREQUENCY DOMAIN, WE WILL ALSO ANALYZE THE CASE OF TIME DOMAIN METHODS, WHICH ARE VITAL FOR SIMULATION OF SOME MOST RECENT BOREHOLE EM MEASUREMENT ACQUISITION SYSTEMS. THE NUMERICAL METHODS DEVELOPED IN THIS PROJECT WILL BE IMPLEMENTED IN AN HPC SOFTWARE THAT WILL EMPLOY LIBRARY PETSC AND EXPLOIT SEVERAL LEVELS OF PARALLELISM, INCLUDING: (A) BASED ON MULTIPLE FREQUENCIES, (B) BASED ON A DOMAIN DECOMPOSITION APPROACH, (C) IN TERMS OF TRANSMITTER/RECEIVER COMBINATIONS, AND (D) IN TERMS OF MULTIPLE EARTH MODEL CONFIGURATIONS FOR THE CASE OF THE BAYESIAN INVERSION. WE WILL APPLY THE RESULTING METHODS, ALGORITHMS, AND SOFTWARE FOR VARIOUS IMAGING APPLICATIONS, INCLUDING: HYDROCARBON EXPLORATION, CO2 SEQUESTRATION, EARTHQUAKE HAZARD ASSESSMENT, AND OPTIMAL PLACEMENT OF GEOTHERMAL HEAT PUMPS. THE UPV/EHU-BCAM GROUP THAT WILL DEVELOP THIS PROJECT (IMAGEARTH) COLLABORATES WITH (A) VARIOUS OIL-COMPANIES FROM WHICH WE HAVE AN ACCESS TO DATASETS COMPRISING BOREHOLE EM MEASUREMENTS, (B) THE GROUP OF P. QUERALT (UNIV. BARCELONA) WHO HAS MULTIPLE MAGNETOTELLURIC MEASUREMENTS ACQUIRED IN DIFFERENT AREAS OF SPAIN, INCLUDING LORCA (EARTHQUAKE HAZARD ASSESSMENT), HONTOMIN (CO2 SEQUESTRATION), AND (C) THE BARCELONA SUPERCOMPUTING CENTER, WHO IS A MEMBER OF THE HORIZON 2020 RISE PROJECT COORDINATED BY DAVID PARDO (PI OF IMAGEARTH), AND IT IS ALSO WORKING VERY CLOSELY WITH REPSOL IN THE AREA OF HYDROCARBON EXPLORATION USING EM METHODS.
Organization(s)	(#1) UNIVERSIDAD DEL PAIS VASCO EUSKAL HERRIKO UNIBERTSITATEA
Country/Region	Spain
Contact Person	David Pardo Zubiaur
Program Owner	MINECO - AEI
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2016-12-30
Project End	2019-12-29
Total Budget (€)	90 871€
Funding Budget (€)	90 871€
Funding Scheme	Grant
Project Category	Resource Development

Summary	"GEOPHYSICAL APPLICATIONS ARE AMONG THE LARGEST COMPUTER SIMULATIONS USED BOTH IN ACADEMIA AND INDUSTRY. FOR LARGE 3D CASES, THEY INVOLVE DESCRIBING HOW PHYSICAL PROPERTIES BEHAVE IN A COMPLEX GEOLOGICAL SETTING. IN PARTICULAR, A POPULAR FAMILY OF APPLICATIONS INVOLVE THE PROPAGATION OF SEISMIC AND ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES. BY MEANS OF GEOPHYSICAL SIMULATIONS WE CAN CONVERT GEOPHYSICAL FIELD DATA OBTAINED WITH SUCH WAVES INTO ACCURATE IMAGES OF THE SUBSURFACE, USEFUL FOR RESOURCE EXPLORATION AND MANAGEMENT (E.G. HYDROCARBON, MINERALS, GEOTHERMAL ENERGY) AS WELL AS FOR EARTHQUAKE SCENARIO OR TECTONIC/LITHOSPHERIC STUDIES. ALTHOUGH THE CAPACITY AND CAPABILITY OF GEOPHYSICAL SIMULATIONS IS LARGELY DRIVEN BY THE STEADY GROWTH OF COMPUTING TECHNOLOGIES, I.E. COMPUTERS ARE BECOMING EVER FASTER, RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE FIELDS OF APPLIED MATHEMATICS AND PHYSICS ARE LEADING TO NEW HIGHLY ACCURATE APPROACHES WHICH CAN BE POTENTIALLY DISRUPTIVE IF PROPERLY ADAPTED TO THE GEOPHYSICAL PROBLEM. NEVERTHELESS, NOT ALL ALGORITHMIC DEVELOPMENTS ARE EQUALLY SUITABLE TO THE HARDWARE CHARACTERISTICS OF MODERN HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING (HPC) PLATFORMS. A DEEP KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THEIR ARCHITECTURE IS MANDATORY TO SUCCESSFULLY DECIDE WHICH APPROACHES ARE BETTER SUITED AND WHICH IMPLEMENTATION IS MORE LIKELY TO UNTAP THE FULL POWER OF THE PROCESSORS (CPU, GPU, FPGA ) AND INTERCONNECTION AVAILABLE. ON THE OTHER HAND, PERFORMANCE USUALLY COMES AT THE PRICE OF A STRONG SPECIALIZATION WHICH HINDERS CODE FLEXIBILITY. THUS IN ORDER TO DEVELOP CODES WHICH ARE EFFICIENT, VERSATILE, EXPANDABLE, SCALABLE, MAINTAINABLE AND PORTABLE, A UNIQUE DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK IS NECESSARY. IN ORDER TO HANDLE THE GEOMETRICAL COMPLEXITY OF GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURES (FAULTING, LAYERING, PINCH-OUTS, STRONG TOPOGRAPHY) COMPUTATIONAL METHODS HAVE TO DISCRETIZE THE SUBSURFACE IN SMALL ELEMENTS, UPON WHICH THE DESIRED PHYSICAL LAWS ARE APPLIED (NEWTON’S LAWS, MAXWELL’S EQUATIONS, HOOKE’S ELASTICITY...). ALTHOUGH AN ACCURATE SOLUTION OF THE EQUATIONS IS VERY IMPORTANT, ALSO THE PROPER GEOMETRICAL DESCRIPTION (DISCRETIZATION) OF THE MODELLED SPACE HAS A CRUCIAL ROLE IN THE OVERALL ACCURACY. THE FINITE ELEMENT (FE) METHOD ALLOWS US TO USE UNSTRUCTURED MESHES, WHICH CAN EASILY ADAPT TO ARBITRARY SHAPES OF THE GEOLOGICAL BODIES AND HENCE CAN HONOR PROPERLY ALL GEOMETRICAL CONSTRAINTS. COMBINED WITH HIGH-ORDER NUMERICAL METHODS, ACCURATE SOLUTIONS CAN BE ATTAINED EVEN AT LONG TIMES AND DISTANCES WITH A LIMITED AMOUNT OF TOTAL DEGREES OF FREEDOM, I.E. TOTAL MEMORY. SPECTRAL ELEMENT (SE) AND DISCONTINUOUS GALERKIN (DG) METHODS HAVE BECOME VERY INTERESTING CANDIDATES FOR MODERN GEOPHYSICAL SIMULATION PROBLEMS. WE PROPOSE TO DEVELOP A FRAMEWORK WHICH HELPS CLOSING THE GAP BETWEEN COMPLEX HIGH-ORDER FE CODES AND EXCELLENT HPC PERFORMANCE, WHILE BEING EASILY EXTENDED AND MODIFIED BY NON-COMPUTE EXPERTS, WITH A PARTICULAR FOCUS ON 3D GEOPHYSICAL WAVE PROPAGATION PROBLEMS. WE TAKE A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM TRYING TO COVER THE PRE-PROCESSING (MESHING, CAD), DEVELOPMENT, RUNTIME, POST-PROCESSING AND INTEGRATION INTO GEOPHYSICAL PROCESSING WORKFLOWS. THE DEVELOPED CODES, WHICH CAN BE DESCRIBED AS HPC PROTOTYPES CAN BE THE TEST BED FOR FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS IN GEOPHYSICAL IMAGING AND INVERSION.    "
Organization(s)	(#1) BARCELONA SUPERCOMPUTING CENTER CENTRO NACIONAL DE SUPERCOMPUTACION
Country/Region	Spain
Contact Person	Mauricio Hanzich Estévez
Program Owner	MINECO - AEI
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2016-12-30
Project End	2019-12-29
Total Budget (€)	122 452€
Funding Budget (€)	122 452€
Funding Scheme	Grant
Project Category	Resource Development

Summary	The international energy agency has identified that 25% of the world`s energy consumption goes into heating and cooling buildings. This surprising fact, combined with the target set in 2007 by the european council that by 2020 20% of the energy consumption in the eu must come from renewable energy sources, renders the use of renewable energy sources for the efficient heating and cooling of buildings as a key factor in the transition from the actual energy model based on fossil fuels to another one that is more sustainable on the long term. Among the different renewable energy sources suitable for the heating and cooling of buildings, geothermal energy is by far the most promising one due to its high energy efficiency potential. But geothermal heat exchangers, which represent the key element in the harnessing of this renewable energy source, present initial investment costs that surpass the ones of conventional non renewable energy sources, which hinders their widespread adoption. This is the reason why the analysis, design, and dimensioning of geothermal heat exchanges plays a crucial role in the successful harnessing of geothermal energy.The target of the present project is the development of analytical or semi-analytical models of the unsteady heat exchange between the boreholes that comprise a geothermal heat exchanger and the surrounding ground, whose accuracy is comparable to state-of-the-art simulation tools like trnsys, but whose computational cost is of the order of seconds instead of days. The accomplishment of this target will open new possibilities for the analysis, design, and optimization of geothermal heat exchangers by means of genetic algorithms or other advanced optimization tools, whose practical application nowadays is unfeasible. The proposed goal will be tackled by means of asymptotic expansion techniques and perturbation methods, which are able to exploit the large disparity in time and length scales present in the heat transfer problem under study. The use in the past of these techniques in other engineering and technical problems has led to analytical or semi-analytical models comparable to the ones sought for the present application. The project will focus on the three regimes of operation which are relevant for the analysis and design of geothermal heat exchangers: the initial transient of 5-10 years relevant for the payback time analysis, the final behavior of the system after several decades of operation relevant for the correct sizing of the borehole field, and the short term start and stop processes relevant for the determination of the maximum and minimum operating temperatures.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Spain
Contact Person	Marcos Vera Coello
Program Owner	MINECO - AEI
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2016-01-01
Project End	2019-12-31
Total Budget (€)	0€
Funding Budget (€)	0€
Funding Scheme	Grant
Project Category

Summary	For the production of electricity, deep wells have to be drilled. Wear of conventional drilling heads and their required frequent replacement results in expensive trip times. “Thermal spallation drilling” is a known promising technology for drilling shallow wells in hard rock formations at ambient pressure. This drilling approach is based on the characteristics of certain rock types to disintegrate continuously into small flakes when exposed to the high thermal loads of an impinging flame jet. The expected enhanced drilling velocities, and less wear of the drilling heads, are major advantages that finally help reducing the drilling costs. However, for drilling wells of several kilometers depth, a water-based drilling fluid is required for fulfilling several important tasks, e.g. removal of rock cuttings. Spallation drilling therefore faces several challenges like entrainment of cold surrounding drilling fluid, ignition and combustion in an aqueous environment and the optimization of heat transfer to rock. Within our hydrothermal spallation drilling pilot plant, it is possible to simulate realistic fluid-dynamic, temperature and pressure conditions as found downhole in deep wells, allowing to show the proof of concept for hydrothermal spallation drilling by means of experiments. This project focuses primarily on the design of a hydrothermal burner, the heat transfer characterization under supercritical conditions of water and the development of heat flux sensor devices.
Organization(s)	(#1) Institut für Verfahrenstechnik, ETHZ
Country/Region	Switzerland
Contact Person	Prof. Philipp Rudolf von Rohr
Program Owner	Swiss Federal Office of Energy
Website/Email	http://www.ltr.ethz.ch/en/research/spallation_drilling.html
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2015-04-01
Project End	2017-11-30
Total Budget (€)	0€
Funding Budget (€)	277 000€
Funding Scheme	Energy Research
Project Category	Resource Development

Summary	Seismic networks are a critical comment of balancing reservoir creation, seismic risk and public acceptance. Designing such networks in a way that maximize the performance while minimizing the costs for installation and operation is increasingly important for operators of deep geothermal projects. It is also important for the SED and for cantonal authorities in order to ensure that networks perform to the pre-agreed requirements, which means that earthquakes down to a certain magnitude must be detected reliably (e.g., all event from magnitude 0,5) and that they can be located within a pre-defined uncertainty (e.g, better than 500 meters). The objective of this project is to extend the existing SED network planning software in a way that stat-of-the-art monitoring techniques (i.e. seismic boreholes arrays) can be evaluated and to develop GUIs to substantially improve the user-friendliness and the documentations such that 3rd-party users are able to apply the tools for their needs.
Organization(s)	(#1) SED (Swiss Seismological Service)
Country/Region	Switzerland
Contact Person	Dr. Toni Kraft
Program Owner	Swiss Federal Office of Energy
Website/Email	http://www.seismo.ethz.ch/en/research-and-teaching/ongoing-projects/#pr_000008.xml
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2015-04-01
Project End	2019-10-31
Total Budget (€)	0€
Funding Budget (€)	839 290€
Funding Scheme	EnergieSchweiz
Project Category	Resource Development

Summary	The aim of the AGEPP-project is to drill and commercialy valorise the first deep geothermal well in the Rhône-Valley, in Lavey-Morcles. The well is located in one of the best investigated locations in Switzerland as far as the geothermal potential is concerned. The goal of the drilling is twofold: generate electricity and provide hot water for the nearby located thermal baths of Lavey-Les-Bains. The geothermal water, featuring a temperature of 110°C and a flowrate of 40 l/s, will enable the production of 4,2 GWhél and 15,5 GWhth per year. This correponds approximately to the electricity-requirements of 900 housholds and the heating-requirements of 800 housholds. The project benefits from a public/private sharholding, which includes regional companies active in the renewable energy sector, the municipalities of Lavey-Morcles and Saint-Maurice, as well as the Canton de Vaud.
Organization(s)	(#1) Etat de Vaud (#2) AGEPP SA (#3) AGEPP SA (#4) Holdigaz SA (#5) EOS HOLDING SA (#6) Romande Energie Holding SA (#7) CESLA SA (#8) Commune de Lavey-Morcles (#9) Commune de Saint-Maurice
Country/Region	Switzerland
Contact Person	Jean-Yves Pidoux (AGEPP SA)
Program Owner	Swiss Federal Office of Energy
Website/Email	www.agepp.ch
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2017-09-01
Project End	2020-12-31
Total Budget (€)	0€
Funding Budget (€)	7 000 000€
Funding Scheme	Pilot-, Demonstrations- und Leuchtturm-Programm
Project Category	Integration and Operation

Summary	Engineered Geothermal System (EGS) projects have attempted to apply hydraulic, acid and thermal stimulations to improve the transmissivity between wells and create a network of fractures that allows for sustainable extraction of heat stored in the solid rock matrix. So far, this has not been fully designed using engineering principles, partially because hydraulic stimulation models only assume mode I (opening) fracture. Within this project, via laboratory based pilot studies, procedures will be developped for field operators to stimulate mode II (shear) and mode III (out-of-plane shear) fractures, to engineer topologically complex 3-D sets of fractures typical in EGS reservoir in such a manner that heat exchange area is maximized, reservoir impedance is minimized and finally micro-seismic events are limited.
Organization(s)	(#1) Laboratory of Expermiental Rock Mechanics (LEMR), EPFL (#2) Geo-Energie Suisse SA
Country/Region	Switzerland
Contact Person	Prof. Marie Violay
Program Owner	Swiss Federal Office of Energy
Website/Email	https://lemr.epfl.ch/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2016-12-01
Project End	2019-05-31
Total Budget (€)	0€
Funding Budget (€)	290 196€
Funding Scheme	Pilot-, Demonstration- und Flagships Programm
Project Category	Resource Development

Summary	This P&D project comprises two large scale in-situ experiment at different scale which address questions associated with the validation of stimulation procedures and sustainable utilization of heat exchangers in the deep underground. Stimulation concepts will be tested in-situ while hydro-seismo-mechanical key parameter will be monitored at a high spatial resolution. The addressed questions are: Which stimulation concepts are appropriate for enhancing the permeability by orders of magnitudes while minimizing induced seismicity , 2) What are the relationships between the hydro-mechanical response, the stimulation concept, permeability creation, effective porosity and induced seismicity, 3) How can micro-seismicity be minimized, 4) What are the heat exchanger properties of the reservoir.
Organization(s)	(#1) ETHZ - SCCER-SoE (#2) Geo-Energie Suisse AG
Country/Region	Switzerland
Contact Person	Prof. Domenico Giardini
Program Owner	Swiss Federal Office of Energy
Website/Email	https://www.erdw.ethz.ch/en/people/profile.html?persid=79459
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2017-02-01
Project End	2020-12-31
Total Budget (€)	0€
Funding Budget (€)	2 180 100€
Funding Scheme	Pilot-, Demonstration- und Flagships Programm
Project Category	Resource Development

Summary	Development of a new HVAC system for large commercial buildings that combines geothermal energy with flow batteries, allowing for an uninterrupted supply of electric and thermal energy with an improved overall efficiency.The identified synergies between the harnessing of low enthalpy geothermal energy and flow batteries allow the achievement of high overall efficiencies in the uninterrupted combined supply of​ electric and thermal energy. This is of great interest for large commercial buildings and critical public services and infrastructures, like hospitals, air traffic control centers, etc. The participation of large companies in the project ensures a rapid market uptake of the developed technology, and therefore a significant social and economical impact.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Spain
Contact Person	Miguel Hermanns (UPM) [email protected]
Program Owner
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2018-06-01
Project End	2021-12-31
Total Budget (€)	2 512 046€
Funding Budget (€)	2 512 046€
Funding Scheme	Programa Retos-Colaboración 2017 del MICINN (National-Spain)
Project Category	Identification and Assessment, Resource Development, Integration and Operation

Summary	Development of a new distributed temperature measurement system for geothermal boreholes based on discrete temperature sensors. The aim is to have a cost competitive measurement technique that can be deployed in a large number of geothermal boreholes, allowing with it the gathering of a large amount of information regarding their performance. The developed measurement technique combines a high calibrated accuracy of 0.1ºC, a fast thermal response of less than 1 minutes, and a deployment cost of around 2,000€ per geothermal installation. These characteristics, especially the last one, make this measurement technique extremely competitive when compared to measurement solutions based on fiber optic cables, whose deployment costs are between 25,000€ and 50,000€ per geothermal installation.​
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Spain
Contact Person	Miguel Hermanns (UPM) [email protected]
Program Owner
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2017-03-01
Project End	2018-08-31
Total Budget (€)	231 396€
Funding Budget (€)	196 687€
Funding Scheme	Programa PIC del CDTI (National-Spain)
Project Category	Identification and Assessment, Resource Development, Integration and Operation

Summary	Development of a geothermal HVAC system based on deep geothermal boreholes (>500m) with advanced grouting materials to better make use of the available space in densily populated urban areas. The use of deep geothermal boreholes allows to reduce the total number of boreholes required to exchange a certain amount of heat with the ground. This translates into less surface required for the geothermal heat exchanger, allowing therefore its use in densily populated urban areas.​ Higher adoption of geothermal energy for the heating and cooling of buildings in densily populated areas, where most of the primary energy consumption and CO2 emissions take place.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Spain
Contact Person	Miguel Hermanns (UPM) [email protected]
Program Owner
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2016-06-01
Project End	0000-00-00
Total Budget (€)	638 362€
Funding Budget (€)	409 573€
Funding Scheme
Project Category	Identification and Assessment, Resource Development

Summary	Development of theoretical models for the design and sizing of sustainable buildings equipped with IntelliGlass’ active glazings and geothermal heat exchangers. The aim of the project is the development of tools for architects and engineers to allow them the incorporation of active glazings into their construction projects and connect these glazings to geothermal heat exchangers. The combined use of active glazings and geothermal heat exchangers for the heating and cooling of buildings allows new levels of energy efficiency to be achieved, which are however untapped yet due to the lack of proper design and sizing tools. The industrial partners in the project ensure the adoption of the developed design methodologies and tools into their workflow. In the case of Cype Ingenieros, the methodologies are incorporated into the architectural software they sell.​
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Azores (Portugal)
Contact Person
Program Owner
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	0000-00-00
Project End	0000-00-00
Total Budget (€)	0€
Funding Budget (€)	0€
Funding Scheme
Project Category

Summary	GEOTABS, when optimised, are the “perfect marriage” of technology for heating and cooling buildings. “GEO” refers to geothermal heat pumps. “TABS” (thermally activated building systems) include technology like concrete core activation, i.e., pipes embedded in concrete floors through which warm/cold water is pumped to heat/cool a building’s thermal mass. Together, GEOTABS (‘Geothermally Activated Building Systems’) offer tremendous energy savings over conventional systems​. Ultimately, this project will reduce the implementation cost of robust MPC hybrid GEOTABS. It is expected to deliver several improvements to the technology while at the same time, reduce investment, design, commissioning and operation costs. Improved heating and cooling of hybrid MPC GEOTABS systems by 25% compared to the existing best practice. Increase the share of residual and renewable heating and cooling sources using the system. Stimulate uptake of the system towards a market share of 50% for offices, apartments and care homes by 2030 (and 25% market share for renovation projects)
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Spain
Contact Person	[email protected]
Program Owner
Website/Email	http://www.hybridgeotabs.eu/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2016-09-01
Project End	2020-08-31
Total Budget (€)	0€
Funding Budget (€)	0€
Funding Scheme
Project Category

Summary	1'000
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Azores (Portugal)
Contact Person	9867
Program Owner	qqq
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2020-01-03
Project End	2020-03-04
Total Budget (€)	0€
Funding Budget (€)	0€
Funding Scheme	qqq
Project Category	Policy and Economy

Summary	Fluctuating renewable electricity production has always been integrated into the Danish electricity system by strong interconnectivity. However, with an increased deployment of renewable energy in the North Sea re-gion and across Europe, e.g. the Nordic hydro power cannot stand alone as an integration tool. Storages for electricity, e.g. batteries, are often very expensive per kWh and limited in the amount available. In this project, a high temperature thermal energy storage (HT-TES) has been tested. The HT-TES consists of a pile of rocks in a well-insulated building, heated to 600 °C by an electric heater powered by the surplus from wind turbines. After a couple of days, when energy is needed again, air is heated by the rocks, hot air then heats water to a steam, and steam is passed through a turbine which generates electricity. The residual heat is fed to district heating. The advantages are low cost, big capacity, inex-pensive to operate and maintain, and an environmentally friendly way of storing energy. The idea is to connect the HT-TES to an existing CHP (Combined heat and power plant) where it can provide both electricity and district heating.
Organization(s)	(#1) SEAS-NVE STRØMMEN A/S (#2) Aarhus Universitet (#3) Energinet (#4) Dansk Energi (#5) ROCKWOOL A/S (#6) Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (DTU)
Country/Region	Denmark
Contact Person	Eva Sass Lauritsen
Program Owner	The Danish Energy Agency
Website/Email	https://energiforskning.dk/en/projects/detail?program=All&teknologi=All&field_bevillingsaar_value=&start=&slut=&field_status_value=All&keyword=64016-0027&=Udf%C3%B8r
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2016-10-01
Project End	2019-06-30
Total Budget (€)	1 137 682€
Funding Budget (€)	800 168€
Funding Scheme	Energy Technology Development and Demonstration
Project Category	Integration and Operation

Summary	Recommissioning and subsequent operation of the seismic research network ‘Suedpfalz’ is a main focus of the project. The collected data form the foundation of the research work carried out by the partners of the research program SEIGER. In addition, the continued operation of the network will lead to the retrieval of an outstanding long-term data set (10 years) to be used for future research projects and methodical developments. The algorithm for the detection of seismic signals developed in previous research programs (MAGS and MAGS2) will be improved. Automation of data evaluation as well as minimization of the number of seismic stations and equipment in order to achieve standardized seismic monitoring are important aspects of the project. Both will lead to substantial reduction of costs for seismic monitoring. The seismic hazard analyses use the catalogue of seismic monitoring in the project as important input data to obtain locations of induced seismic events and their magnitude frequency relation. The local ground conditions are investigated in order to include the amplification effects due to shallow structure (micro-zonation of villages or urban quarters). The methods of seismic hazard analyses will be extended in order to take account of temporal changes of induced seismicity, to include ground motion equations using moment magnitude and to include triggering of faults in the vicinity of the geothermal boreholes. Deep geothermal energy exploitation arouses great attention of the stakeholders (public, operators, public authorities) due to the frequent occurrence of induced seismicity and also a feeling of insecurity in regard of the possible impact. Concepts will be developed to present the observed data and its evaluation in a quick, extensive and transparent manner. The focus of this part of the work will be at public relation.
Organization(s)	(#1) Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) (#2) DMT GmbH (#3) BESTEC GmbH (#4) ITB - Institut für Innovation, Transfer und Beratung gGmbH (#5) Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena (#6) Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main (#7) Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Country/Region	Germany
Contact Person	via NCP
Program Owner	Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2019-05-01
Project End	2022-04-30
Total Budget (€)	3 280 018€
Funding Budget (€)	2 822 943€
Funding Scheme	7. Energy Research Program - Geothermal
Project Category	Integration and Operation, Public Awareness and Education

Summary	The novelty of the research project is to build a pilot plant for seasonal heat storage within the former and no longer accessible small mine Markgraf II, which is located under the drilling site of the International Geothermal Center (GZB). The main focus of the pilot plant is on a two-year test and operating phase of the Markgraf II mine heat storage system. The data obtained should be used for the construction and further development of deep underground heat storage systems. The concept idea is to store seasonal excess solar heat inside the mine in summer and use it for the CO2-neutral heat supply of the GZB campus in winter. The Bo.Rex (Bochum Research and Exploration Drilling Rig), the institute's own drilling rig, is designed to make the production and injection drilling at approx. 63 m u. Sink GOK. This depth represents the deepest level of the Markgraf II mine In addition, ten further monitoring wells, each with a depth of 99 m u. GOK, be brought down concentrically around the pit heat storage, so that a dense monitoring network (temperature, flow, pH value and conductivity) can be ensured during the two-year operation. From the GZB's existing exploratory boreholes, it can be estimated that a pit water temperature in the range of around 10-12 ° C can be anticipated in the deepest bottom of the Markgraf II mine. From 1953 to 1958, the Markgraf II coal mine produced a total of 37,043 tons of coal. With a coal density of 1.35 g / cm3, this results in a void volume (without draw frames and shafts) of 27,439 m3. If a residual void volume of 10% is assumed, a heat quantity of 165 MWh / a could be stored in the pit water at ¿T of 50 K within the pit building. This corresponds to the GZB's annual heat requirement.
Organization(s)	(#1) Hochschule Bochum - International Geothermal Centre (#2) delta H Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH (#3) Fraunhofer-Einrichtung für Energieinfrastruktur und Geothermie IEG
Country/Region	Germany
Contact Person	via NCP
Program Owner	Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy
Website/Email	www.heatstore.eu
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2018-06-01
Project End	2021-05-30
Total Budget (€)	1 014 537€
Funding Budget (€)	968 409€
Funding Scheme	7. Energy Research Program - Geothermal
Project Category	Identification and Assessment

Summary	The Geothermal Operational Optimization with Machine Learning (GOOML) is a machine learning project focused on delivering a digital system model of geothermal operations that will result in increased plant efficiencies and electricity generation output. This will be a collaborative project lead by Upflow partnering with NREL to develop machine learning optimization algorithms on geothermal systems using data from fields and plants operated by the US partner Ormat and NZ based Contact and NTGA. FSS has extensive experience in developing reservoir and generation process models which will help guide the development of realistic algorithms.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	US
Contact Person	William Vandermeer
Program Owner	/
Website/Email	/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2019-09-01
Project End	2021-08-31
Total Budget (€)	500 800€
Funding Budget (€)	321 879€
Funding Scheme	/
Project Category	Integration and Operation, Resource Development

Summary	This project will develop machine learning (ML) methods to advance geothermal exploration and geothermal energy production by focusing in two areas. The first will involve ML methods to use microearthquakes (MEQs) for imaging geothermal reservoir properties and improving subsurface characterization – most importantly the evolution of permeability within the evolving reservoir. This work will include development of ML approaches for automated MEQ location, focal mechanism determination and identification of earthquake precursors. The second area will focus on learning from MEQs signals during geothermal exploration and production to predict induced seismicity. We will extend to reservoir scale our recent success in using ML to predict laboratory earthquakes. A key aspect of both focus areas will be developing open, community datasets of labeled events (including MEQ magnitude, location, focal mechanism and precursory signals) and properties (including reservoir permeability, fracture properties, and stress state) for future ML work.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	US
Contact Person	William Vandermeer
Program Owner	/
Website/Email	/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2019-08-01
Project End	2021-07-31
Total Budget (€)	574 563€
Funding Budget (€)	457 526€
Funding Scheme	/
Project Category	Identification and Assessment, Resource Development

Summary	To develop a data labeling methodology by coupling multi/hyperspectral data cubes with geological, geophysical and drill hole data and then develop DLM for detecting potential geothermal exploration sites from hyperspectral images. To achieve this overall goal we will 1) develop a methodology for automatic labeling of training data using existing image data sources of hyperspectral and geological, geophysical and borehole data sets. We will implement this methodology for the Brady Hot Springs (Brady) geothermal site as it has the largest existing data available to the research team (Objective 1), 2) develop DLM for Brady and assess their performance in detecting potential geothermal exploration sites (Objective 2) and 3) Test performance of DLM using the pre-trained models of the Brady for the Desert Rock (DR) and Salton Sea (SS) geothermal sites (Objective 3).
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	US
Contact Person	Sean Porse
Program Owner	/
Website/Email	/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2019-08-01
Project End	2021-07-31
Total Budget (€)	554 133€
Funding Budget (€)	443 306€
Funding Scheme	/
Project Category	, Identification and Assessment

Summary	This project builds on a prior demonstration project focused on defining geothermal play fairways, generating detailed geothermal potential maps for ~1/3 of Nevada, and facilitating discovery of blind geothermal fields. The play fairway approach (PFA) incorporated ~10 geologic, geophysical, and geochemical parameters indicative of geothermal activity. The Nevada PFA led to discovery of a new geothermal system. The PFA leveraged logistic regression, weights of evidence, and other statistical measures as a type of machine learning (ML) technique. A set of features, each gauged by a perceived weight of influence, were combined to scale with geothermal potential. However, key limitations and challenges affected the PFA, including estimating weights of influence for parameters, incomplete datasets, and limited training sites. We propose to mitigate key challenges in the Nevada PFA through innovative applications of ML techniques, including training set augmentation, artificial neural networks, and support vector machines. The study area includes ~100 active geothermal systems as training sites and >12 known geologic, geophysical, and geochemical features. The main goal is to develop an algorithmic approach to identify new geothermal systems in the Great Basin. Major objectives include: 1) integrate ML techniques into the geothermal community; 2) develop open community datasets, whereby all PFA and ML datasets and algorithms are publicly released and available for modification by various user groups; 3) identify data acquisition targets with high value for future work; 4) identify new signatures to detect blind geothermal systems; and 5) foster new capabilities for characterizing subsurface temperature and permeability. The work plan will proceed in three stages. Initially, ML techniques will be applied to the same PFA datasets and workflow. ML will then be applied to both enhanced and additional datasets, with modification of the PFA workflow to incorporate the new datasets. Finally, ML will be applied to define new workflows using the enhanced and additional datasets. An algorithmic approach that empirically learns to estimate weights of influence for diverse parameters can potentially scale and perform better than the PFA. This innovative project is likely to have significant impacts, given that evaluation of the interrelations of >12 parameters with a range of ML methods will provide novel insights into the application of ML concepts to assessment of geothermal potential and probably identify new signatures for detecting blind geothermal systems. The results in Budget Period 1 (BP1) will identify future data acquisition targets, providing clear objectives for BP2. We will develop and disseminate open, labeled datasets and web interfaces and applications to ensure that ML expertise, datasets, and practices are easily accessible and fully integrated into the geothermal community. Public release of our web applications will permit others to add and test other datasets (e.g. proprietary industry data), infuse alternative biases in weighting parameters, and/or reconfigure algorithms based on tectonic setting and available data.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	US
Contact Person	Michael Weathers
Program Owner	/
Website/Email	/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2019-08-01
Project End	2021-07-31
Total Budget (€)	501 546€
Funding Budget (€)	386 383€
Funding Scheme	/
Project Category	Identification and Assessment

Summary	The goal is to build a single web-platform through which geothermal researchers can simultaneously 1) access a unique and continuously growing corpus of millions of scientific documents; 2) programmatically parse the grammatical and visual relationships of words in the texts (e.g., noun, adjective); 3) use these relationships to build structured (e.g., spreadsheets) datasets for geothermal research; and 4) to share and analyze these datasets with other geothermal researchers. Abstract Data-driven models describing the distribution and properties of economically-viable geothermal reservoirs require large, machine-readable datasets. However, manually assembling comprehensive datasets from distributed commercial and open-access sources is often prohibitively expensive. Even when potential data sources, such as scientific journal articles or imagery, are identified and accessed, the information within them is often unstructured (e.g., free-form text, tables, figures) and difficult to transform into a structured data frame suitable for incorporating into actionable knowledge bases. Furthermore, the cost of constructing manual databases only increases as new data or data-types are included, making it impractical to update or expand datasets to accommodate new avenues of research. Here, we propose to overcome the limitations of fully manual dataset construction by building a cyberinfrastructure system to help geothermal researchers generate new datasets as needed from digital documents (e.g., scientific journal articles). This system will connect users to millions of open and controlled-access scientific documents, and establish a data and computing environment for researcher to build new, custom datasets using machine reading and learning algorithms. Our team already manages three unique cyberinfrastructure systems - GeoDeepDive, CyVerse, and the National Geothermal Data System - designed to handle individual elements of the proposed pipeline, but EERE support is needed to link these distinct systems together to create end-to-end capability for programmatically creating open-community geothermal datasets. Combining and enhancing these systems will lead to significant cost-reductions in dataset construction, and will empower geothermal researchers to pursue a greater quantity and variety of analytical research.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	US
Contact Person	Arlene Anderson
Program Owner	/
Website/Email	/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2019-09-01
Project End	2021-08-31
Total Budget (€)	470 670€
Funding Budget (€)	376 127€
Funding Scheme	/
Project Category	Data and Knowledge Sharing

Summary	The objectives of this project are to first automatically detect subsurface fault/fracture zones from seismic migration images and then reliably characterize the fractures with the fault/fracture zones using double-beam method and machine learning. The multiscale fracture information obtained by us will be critical to infer the permeability field for geothermal development. In the detection phase, the project will develop a novel method for automatic detection of fault/fracture zones in seismic migration images using convolutional neural network and structure-oriented anisotropic diffusion filtering. This new detection method will avoid interpreter dependent of geologic interpretation, and make the fault/fracture detection objective instead of subjective, particularly for noisy seismic images from geothermal fields. In the characterization phase, the project will develop an innovative method for reliable characterization of the detected faults/fracture zones using neural network and double-beam interference patterns. This novel characterization method will provide spatially dependent fracture parameters: fracture azimuth, density, and compliance, and infer fluid/steam content within fracture zones. The project team will verify these novel methods on a synthetic seismic dataset for a geophysical model derived from a geothermal field, and validate them using 3D field seismic data from the geothermal field. This is a collaborative project between the University of Houston and Los Alamos National Laboratory. The seismic data will be provided by Cyrq Energy, Inc. This research will provide a powerful tool for reliable detection and characterization of fault/fracture zones in geothermal fields. This work will enable field operators to optimize well placement and maximize geothermal production, and vastly reduce the geothermal exploration risk.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	US
Contact Person	Elisabet Metcalfe
Program Owner	/
Website/Email	/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2019-09-01
Project End	2021-08-31
Total Budget (€)	391 000€
Funding Budget (€)	276 000€
Funding Scheme	/
Project Category	Identification and Assessment

Summary	Conventional physics-based simulation is widely accepted as a comprehensive tool for predicting energy production performance in geothermal systems. However, accurate representation of multiphysics processes is complicated by the limited our understanding of the coupling effects and significant uncertainty in subsurface descriptions. Moreover, constructing and calibrating simulation models is an involved process that requires extensive technical expertise and computational efforts, making them impractical for real-time monitoring and control applications. An emerging alternative to physics-based simulation is predictive analytics, which has gained popularity in energy industry, in part due to advances in cost-effective monitoring technologies. Advances in machine learning and predictive analytics have introduced a disruptive technology that is revolutionizing many industries by offering powerful and efficient prediction tools that are derived from data only. With increasing availability of multi-physics monitoring data from geothermal reservoirs and power plants, predictive analytics models present powerful, efficient, and easy-to-deploy tools to address the needs for: (i) efficient predictive tools informed by multiphysics data, (ii) automatic prediction and detection of trouble events; and (iii) real-time monitoring and control of geothermal operations. The objective of this project is to develop customized predictive analytics technologies to enable efficient surveillance, control, and automation of geothermal operations. By integrating state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms with advanced multi-physics monitoring data acquisition systems, the project aims to develop novel data-driven predictive models for integration into real-time fault detection/diagnosis and model predictive control algorithms to improve the efficiency of energy production operations in geothermal reservoirs. To accomplish this goal, two main research thrust areas (TAs) are proposed: (TA1) Improved Power Plant Operations; and (TA2) Geothermal Reservoir Performance Prediction. TA1 focuses on developing deep dynamic neural networks that can be used for fault prediction and modelpredictive process control workflows to improve geothermal operations efficiency. The objective of TA2 is to develop recurrent neural networks for multi-physics monitoring data from geothermal reservoirs, which can be used in closed-loop control frameworks to optimize geothermal energy production efficiency. The developed technologies in this project will be validated using field data from geothermal operations in partnership with Cyrq Energy, Inc., which operates five geothermal fields in westerns US. The project leverages in-houses technical, computing, and infrastructural resources of two important centers at USC that are closely aligned with the topic of the proposal, to accomplish the proposed objectives. Successful completion of the proposed research tasks will provide the US Geothermal Industry with scientifically rigorous data analytics-based predictive tools with the potential to transform geothermal energy recovery from manual to automated datadriven feedback-controlled operations with advanced monitoring and surveillance capabilities.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	US
Contact Person	Michael Weathers
Program Owner	/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2019-08-01
Project End	2021-07-31
Total Budget (€)	718 858€
Funding Budget (€)	574 500€
Funding Scheme	/
Project Category	Integration and Operation

Summary	Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) face many lower completions challenges due to the extreme bottom hole temperatures (up to 300 DegC). In addition the economic viability of EGS wells has a strong dependence on the number of stimulated intervals per well. Within the oil and gas industry cement and perforate has been the primary method of completing wells. Recently well design has progressed to cementless completions using External casing Packers (ECP) or swell packers to provide zonal isolation. However these solutions are not able to perform at the extreme high temperature conditions within EGS wells. Exasperating the challenge to achieve effective annular isolation during the high pressure fracing (often up to 6,000p psi above the bottom hole hydrostatic) is the duration of the stimulation (often up to 14 days) and the hole ovalisation caused by break out during the drilling phase. This project addresses the technical extension required to develop and qualify a hydraulically expandable metal Well Annular Barrier (WAB) to meet the demands of the geothermal wells up to 300 degC. The Well Annular Barrier (WAB) has been developed by the oil and gas industry for zonal isolation and acid stimulation applications up to 160 degC and incorporates HNBR type seals. To meet the extreme high temperature requirements for the EGS wells, all the elastomer seals will be removed from the design and replaced with unique metal seal systems. This includes the metal sealing from the hydraulic expandable sleeve to the formation and a method to achieve high diametrical expansion within an ovalised hole without the loss of wall thickness without the use of elastomer seals. The redesigned all metal packers will then be qualified in accordance with the API 19OH process which replicates the extreme temperature cycles experienced between bottom hole geothermal gradient of 300 degC and the cool down to 160 DegC (or less) during the stimulation of the geothermal well. The project addresses the material selection criteria to achieve the required expansion, the unique outer seal design to deliver the pressure differential requirements of up to 6,000 psi together with the innovative solution to enable diametrical expansion of the metal sleeve without loss of wall thickness. Finally the project will address the planning and execution of a field trial well deployment along with other potential applications for this high capability open hole or cased hole, metal expandable packer.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	US
Contact Person	Sean Porse
Program Owner	/
Website/Email	/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2019-02-01
Project End	2022-03-31
Total Budget (€)	1 003 737€
Funding Budget (€)	738 695€
Funding Scheme	/
Project Category	Resource Development, Integration and Operation

Summary	This project will develop a fully retrievable High Temperature Packer Systems for use in Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) stimulations. The packers will allow controlled EGS stimulations at temperatures from 150°C to greater than 225°C and hold a differential pressure of at least 6000 psi. These modifications of exiting technology will be simpler and more cost-effective that current packer designs. They will eliminate the risk of failing to set or getting stuck due to thermal effects which plague existing packer designs, especially in geothermal reservoirs. Project Description: These designs will build upon existing patented technology (patent US9,458,694, AltaRock Energy) that uses thermally-degradable expandable foaming agents for zone isolation behind slotted wellbore liners. For open hole applications, existing swellable external casing packer systems well be adapted for use as retrievable packers by selecting elastomers or foaming polymers that degrade over time at the temperature of the rock. For well sections with slotted liners, HERO will coordinate with AltaRock to modify their existing patent to use thermally-degradable expandable foamed polymers for zone isolation behind a slotted liner. Initially, existing packer technologies using swellable elastomers in oil and gas wells will be reviewed with an eye to modify them with thermally degradable materials for high temperature use. Materials selection criteria will be developed, and a suite of materials will be identified that that can expand to seal, hold during stimulation, and then degrade to allow packer release and retrieval. Next, testing of materials and design components over temperature range up to 225°C will occur at bench-scale in the flow reactor developed for AltaRock at the University of Utah Energy and Geoscience Institute (EGI). Degradation products will and analyzed as part of the testing. Once bench-scale studies are complete, testing will be scaled up to prototype size with an industrial testing partner with high temperature facilities. The facility for this work will also provide scale testing of the prototype for design modification. Finally, an economic analysis of the system designs will provide a cost/benefit decision whether to use such systems in EGS situations, and a commercialization plan will be developed to expedite industry adoption and use of these systems.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	US
Contact Person	Sean Porse
Program Owner	/
Website/Email	/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2019-03-01
Project End	2022-02-28
Total Budget (€)	910 112€
Funding Budget (€)	727 990€
Funding Scheme	/
Project Category	Resource Development, Integration and Operation

Summary	Along with tremendous incentives involved in extracting energy from renewable geothermal energy resources, significant challenges exist in developing new technologies to minimize cost and risk while maximizing the production. In this regard, effective zonal isolation to allow stimulation of a specific targeted zone is one of the key problems facing EGS developments. Lack of an effective zonal isolation leads to fluid leakage between the zones, reducing the intended stimulated pressure (or making it impossible) to fracture the targeted zone. These events, along with short-life isolation, will decrease the fracture predictability, capacity optimization, and economies of energy production. The objective of this proposal is to develop a first-of-its-kind technology for in-situ, rapid and durable multistage zonal isolation for EGS developments. Building on our recently elucidated scientific principles, the core of the proposed zonal isolation technology will use functionalized graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) embedded in high performance polymers, which will be irradiated with a microwave (MV) tool. During completions, the polymer solutions will break into crumpled bags attached to a downhole tool, significantly expanding them to conformably cover the rough wellbore walls, followed by MV curing. The functionalized GNRs will act as electromagnetic antenna for efficient absorption of MV, and rapid and in-situ polymer curing, hence effective zonal isolation. This strategy will allow rapid and efficient isolation of the multiple fracture zones, demonstrating a significant first-step in sealing and zonal isolation for EGS and broader complex (e.g. oil & gas) wells. This early stage R&D will combine the fundamentals of cutting-edge materials science, polymer chemistry, advanced engineering and tool design followed by thorough testing in lab-simulated environments and pilot testing that are tailored to improve zonal isolations in openholes of EGS conditions. The core synthesis and design will develop and optimize the system integration (materials and tool prototype) while characterization will employ a myriad of spectroscopic, mechanical, thermal and permeability testings to validate our technology in lab-simulated environments and pilot settings. This project will allow an entirely new phase space for highly efficient multistage zonal isolations with lower time and cost, significantly increasing the fracture predictability of stimulated fracture networks. The economic benefits are improved production (e.g. more productive reservoirs in less time, less money and lower number of wells), lower risk (e.g. seismic) and better marketability of EGS. Given the promises of staged stimulations to unlock the massive (100+ GW) capacity of EGS, this project will potentially lead to tremendous savings in cost and resources (water, personnel, equipment, etc) in EGS development. The hallmark of this project is the leveraging of an innovative idea, the materials experience of an award-winning materials research company (C-Crete), the characterization knowledge of a prominent research institution (Rice University), and the commercial and development knowhow of a leading industrial service company (Baker Hughes). These attributes, together with our collective state-of-the-art equipment and facilities, guarantee the highest chance of success.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	US
Contact Person	William Vandermeer
Program Owner	/
Website/Email	/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2019-02-01
Project End	2021-12-31
Total Budget (€)	2 113 799€
Funding Budget (€)	1 691 040€
Funding Scheme	/
Project Category	Resource Development, Integration and Operation

Summary	Limited entry perforation (LEP) clusters are designed to control the flow rate entering each individual fracture zone within a multicluster hydraulic stimulation treatment stage. Limited entry is a technique that isolates and redistributes flow among a set of perforation clusters by taking advantage of the pressure drop across the perforations; because perforation pressure drop scales with the flow rate squared, fracture zones that tend to take more flow ultimately produce a relatively large pressure drop that results in a self-correcting flow redistribution. Limited entry flow control ensures uniform fracture propagation of multiple fractures within each treatment stage. Successfully creating isolated fracture zones through limited entry perforation clusters and distributing flow across multiple clusters within each treatment stage would result in EGS projects with more easily optimized heat mining efficiency, improved predictability, reduced cost and resources, and decreased risk of induced seismicity. In this work, we will perform a set of field experiments at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) located in Lead, South Dakota to investigate critical factors that influence limited entry flow control within the context of a multistage, multicluster stimulation. Budget Period 1 will involve performing numerical simulations to optimize the design of the LEP clusters, site characterization, site selection, drilling a horizontal test wellbore, instrumenting the wellbore, and completing the wellbore with the LEP design. Budget Period 2 will involve performing two sets of multistage, multicluster stimulation field experiments, analysis and interpretation of field data, and evaluating the potential for using LEP designs in full-scale EGS projects. The End of Project Goal includes performing several multistage, multicluster stimulation treatments in the SURF test well in which DAS/DTS monitoring data confirms successful distribution of flow across multiple fracture zones within each stage.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	US
Contact Person	Elisabet Metcalfe
Program Owner	/
Website/Email	/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2019-01-01
Project End	2021-04-01
Total Budget (€)	1 175 475€
Funding Budget (€)	936 275€
Funding Scheme	/
Project Category	Resource Development, Integration and Operation

Summary	This feasibility study will examine the requirements for developing a heat recovery complex that integrates geothermal energy sources with existing district-scale heating and cooling systems at the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). This work is closely aligned with the aims of the U.S. Department of Energy to advance the development of geothermal Deep Direct-Use (DDU) energy systems to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the use of fossil fuels, and to contribute to net-zero energy planning by large energy end-users such as university campuses, military installations, and hospitals or medical centers. The Geothermal Heat Recovery Complex (GeoHRC) proposed in this study will examine the feasibility of developing a DDU using warm waters (90 to 150°F) extracted from depths of 2000 to 6000 feet out of geologic strata within the intracratonic Illinois Basin. Identifying the geological, engineering, and equipment needs required to connect this energy source with the existing university infrastructure to improve district-scale energy efficiency will constitute the main goals of this multidisciplinary study. Specific project objectives include the following: 1) Identifying suitable geologic formation(s) in the Illinois Basin that can provide geothermal energy for large-scale direct use, 2) Designing wellbore systems for efficient extraction and reinjection of geothermal waters, 3) Integrating the GeoHRC design with the portfolio of existing UIUC campus facilities, 4) Identifying commercialization challenges (including regulations and economics) for the technology to be transferred to district-scale heating and cooling at other sites (e.g., universities and military bases) in the Illinois Basin and similar geologic settings, and 5) Developing a plan to deploy the technology at UIUC and identifying other sites suitable for this energy technology, such as regional military installations. Detailed geological flow models form much of the basis for the subsurface design analyses because they identify potential geothermal water extraction and injection rates, including temperature loss. The models use data on local in situ geological features, including hydraulic and thermal properties, and can contrast closed- versus open-loop configurations for the geothermal well systems and highlight relative efficiencies of vertical or horizontal well orientations. From modeling results, realistic DDU scenarios can be selected for specific wellbore designs, heat recovery design, regulatory implications, techno-economic analyses, and marketing. The UIUC campus has a keen interest in geothermal technology, and this study will be instrumental for similar end-users within the Illinois Basin. Because there are analogous sedimentary basins elsewhere, a high-level assessment will also identify the applicability of this project’s technology to other parts of the central and eastern United States. The project team at UIUC is collaborating with the University of Wisconsin and U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) to undertake the techno-economic analyses and apply these results to military installations. We are also partnering with Loudon Technical Services LLC, MEP Associates LLC, and Trimeric Corporation to design the surface and subsurface infrastructure.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	US
Contact Person	Arlene Anderson
Program Owner	/
Website/Email	/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2017-10-01
Project End	2020-03-31
Total Budget (€)	748 569€
Funding Budget (€)	671 600€
Funding Scheme	/
Project Category	Identification and Assessment, Sustainability

Summary	In regions with long cold overcast winters and sunny summers, Deep Direct-Use (DDU) can be coupled with Thermal Energy Storage (DDU-TES) technology to inject summer heat for later extraction during cold seasons. In many parts of the U.S., the upper aquifer system is underlain by permeable regions containing slow-moving or stagnant brackish (1,000-10,000 mg/L TDS) or saline (>10,000 mg/L TDS) groundwater that has limited beneficial use due to poor quality. We propose that waste heat and solar-derived thermal energy can be stored within brackish/saline aquifers, elevating temperatures sufficiently for all direct-use technologies. Viable systems will require sufficient thermal and hydraulic separation between the energy-storage horizon and shallow aquifers. We propose to demonstrate the efficacy of DDU-TES for 1,300 km2 of the Portland Basin, Oregon, which has low heat flow and low hydrothermal favorability, but ideal conditions for DDU-TES. DDU-TES systems that have previously been proposed target impermeable strata, relying only on conduction of heat away from the borehole, but the proposed study takes advantage of natural permeability in stagnant parts of deep aquifers to efficiently distribute heat advectively over large parts of the subsurface, thereby greatly increasing the area through which heat is exchanged, allowing more efficient storage and exchange of heat. Favorable geologic conditions exist near the base of the layered Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG) lava flows, beneath the regional aquifer system. A thorough geologic characterization of the system and geothermal resource analysis will be completed. In addition, an economic analysis will be conducted for the downtown high-density district-heating area, with a more-detailed analysis of critical infrastructure that includes four major hospitals and Portland International Airport. The study is comprised of four major tasks. The geologic analysis (Task 1) defines the distribution of geologic units for simulation of heat storage and recoverable heat, and assesses the vulnerability of the system to natural and induced hazards. Geothermal resource analysis (Task 2) will be constrained by industry-designed storage-extraction scenarios (Task 3), and maps will be produced by simulating storage and recoverable heat (including uncertainty maps reflecting geologic and hydrologic uncertainty). A general economic and regulatory analysis (Task 4) will identify how DDU-TES fits with City and State initiatives for low-carbon energy and resilience following natural disasters. Because of Portland’s rapid growth and its support of low-carbon energy initiatives, maps that document a viable geothermal energy source for district heating have a high probability of adoption. More broadly, this study can be viewed as a proof of concept and recipe for success for other saline and brackish aquifer systems across the U.S. In principle, the needs are cold winters, summer sunlight, and a deep brackish or saline aquifer (not connected to the ocean), indicating low groundwater flow conditions. These conditions are plentiful in the Midwest and Eastern U.S.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	US
Contact Person	Arlene Anderson
Program Owner	/
Website/Email	/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2017-10-01
Project End	2020-09-30
Total Budget (€)	761 502€
Funding Budget (€)	671 600€
Funding Scheme	/
Project Category	Resource Development, Integration and Operation

Summary	The Morgantown campus of West Virginia University (WVU) is uniquely positioned to host the first geothermal direct-use district heating system in the eastern United States. While much of the eastern United States is not blessed with extremely high heat flow and elevated temperatures, the northeastern part of West Virginia is unique in having a basin that is expected to support the achievable flowrate of geofluid through target formations in the Appalachian Sedimentary Basin, and sufficient temperatures in those target formations. These two factors were identified by the PI in the 2006 MIT Future of Geothermal Energy Report to be the two most critical factors in minimizing cost of geothermal energy. This proposal outlines a plan to perform a feasibility analysis of developing a Geothermal District Heating and Cooling (GDHC) system for the WVU campus in Morgantown, WV, to replace the current coal-fired steam heating and cooling system. This system is unique as it will allow for utilization of the geothermal heat, and thus amortization of the costs of the system, across a full 12-month year. The steam to the campus loop is currently provided by an external coal facility, in which the 35-year contract and design lifetime is scheduled to end within the next 10 years. As such, the WVU Facilities Management Team is actively pursuing options to provide heating and cooling to the campus spanning 245 buildings on 1,892 acres. In conjunction with our project partners, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the West Virginia Geologic and Economic Survey, and Cornell University, our overall project objectives are to 1) decrease the uncertainty and risk associated with developing the geothermal resource for use on campus at WVU and 2) complete an optimized design for the geothermal system, minimizing the delivered Levelized Cost of Heat (LCOH). Our first goal to minimize the risk of project development will be achieved by decreasing the uncertainty in both the subsurface geothermal system as well the surface distribution system. The subsurface uncertainty is dominated by the uncertainty in the project team’s projections of geofluid flowrate in our target formation, the Tuscarora Sandstone. The project’s second overarching goal of minimizing the delivered LCOH will be achieved by performing an integrated surface-to-subsurface optimization of the full GDHC system as well as engineering design and analysis of the retrofit potential of each segment of the campus. The proposed funding from the DOE Geothermal Technologies Office will allow the project team to perform the feasibility analysis for deep direct use geothermal development for use by the existing district heating and cooling system at WVU. The project team has worked together to identify the potential, but significant uncertainties and therefore financial risks remain. The DOE funding requested will allow the project team to minimize these risks through a comprehensive effort to build an accurate geologic model of the target formation, and the design and optimization of the full GDHC system. Upon completion of the proposed project, West Virginia University will be at a Go/No-Go decision point for significant investment of WVU financial resources to continue to pursue the construction of a GDHC system for the campus.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	US
Contact Person	Arlene Anderson
Program Owner	/
Website/Email	/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2017-10-01
Project End	2020-03-31
Total Budget (€)	610 232€
Funding Budget (€)	505 797€
Funding Scheme	/
Project Category	Identification and Assessment

Summary	Cornell University, an Ivy-League non-profit institute of higher learning, is looking to become the first major University in a northern climate to completely heat and cool its campus using local renewable, sustainable energy sources with “net-zero” carbon-based emissions. Having already created a highly efficient, emissions-free sustainable cooling source (Lake Source Cooling), we are now exploring Earth Source Heat as a parallel solution for heating our upstate NY campus via direct-use geothermal energy. This DOE funded project will produce a comprehensive Feasibility Study exploring ways to optimize and improve the economics of the geothermal system. This will include refining estimates of the potential resources beneath our campus, integrating local biomass sources and heat pumps for peak heating needs to reduce geothermal capital costs, and designing “cascading” systems that allow extracted heat to be utilized several times over - for building heating, then for agricultural uses, and finally for snow melting or similar opportunities.Our study will also address the complexities of the economics of Deep Direct Use geothermal energy, considering not just the direct cost of heat, but also the regional economic value of local energy production and the global costs of carbon-based emissions (sometimes called the “Social Cost of Carbon”). This exploration may suggest ways in which the capital investment in deep geothermal may be equitably borne by those who share its benefits. If successful, this Feasibility Study will set the stage for a future test well and demonstration project on Cornell’s Ithaca campus.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	US
Contact Person	Arlene Anderson
Program Owner	/
Website/Email	/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2017-10-01
Project End	2020-03-31
Total Budget (€)	746 223€
Funding Budget (€)	671 600€
Funding Scheme	/
Project Category	Identification and Assessment

Summary	Direct-use of deep, low-temperature geothermal resources for commercial or industrial heating is underutilized due to challenging project economics associated with developing a deep geothermal resource for what are historically small-scale projects. This project will study the feasibility of using such resources for larger, industrial applications within thermo-electric power stations. Regions of the state of Texas hold underlying low-temperature geothermal and geopressured resources. These same regions are home to over 100 power plants, representing over 50,000 MWe of summer capacity. This project proposes to assess the feasibility of geothermal energy integration in steam-Rankine and natural-gas combined cycle power stations in the Sabine Uplift and Gulf Coast regions of Texas to quantify the economic potential of using the geothermal resource for fuel drying or turbine inlet cooling (TIC) via absorption chillers. The feasibility study will evaluate local geothermal resource, model integration options, and assess economic viability. The heat duty of a single fuel-drying or TIC application can easily exceed 50 MWt, which is half as large as the cumulative capacity of all 21 district heating geothermal direct-use applications in the United States. While fuel drying and TIC have been successfully deployed in the United States, they generally require a parasitic-energy draw from the host plant, and there has not been a detailed analysis outlining the potential benefits of incorporating geothermal energy. The proposed feasibility study brings together expertise in geothermal resources and relevant commercial technologies to provide such an analysis, which can be used to facilitate follow-on pilot-testing and technology deployment. The potential geothermal-energy usage of each site, i.e., about 50 MWt, indicates that the identification of one or more suitable locations could have a significant impact on overall direct-use in the country (currently about 500 MWt spread over 400 sites) and help expand geothermal-energy use into Texas and the Gulf Coast Region.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	US
Contact Person	Arlene Anderson
Program Owner	/
Website/Email	/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2017-10-02
Project End	2019-09-30
Total Budget (€)	943 180€
Funding Budget (€)	826 051€
Funding Scheme	/
Project Category	Identification and Assessment

Summary	The objective of this project is to develop a multi-disciplinary, three-tiered analysis approach to assess the geothermal resource and determine the feasibility of implementing a large-scale, direct-use facility for the Hawthorne Army Depot (HAD) and the various town and county facilities in Hawthorne, Nevada. The output from this project is a comprehensive techno-economic feasibility assessment that presents Pareto-optimal results for a set of direct-use district heating and cooling configurations that show their respective tradeoffs amongst a set of decision metrics. The intent is to allow decision makers from the town of Hawthorne, Mineral County, and the HAD to select configurations that best meet their priorities and financial capabilities and are thus also the easiest to implement. The potential of the geothermal resources in the Hawthorne area has been recognized since the early 1980’s. Multiple wells in the area have produced water temperatures in excess of 190 oF, with the highest reaching 239 oF. Flow tests have produced 200 oF water at rates of 196 gallons per minute, indicating a high potential for direct-use applications. This project is developing an innovative three-tiered analysis approach that links production side analysis and direct-use demand side analysis to create a whole-system analysis (WSA) of the entire system. The WSA uses system dynamics theory and advanced modeling capabilities to understand the integrated dynamic behavior and dependencies between the production and demand sides to determine the economic feasibility of utilizing the resource. In this way, the linkage between how the resource is used, its long-term sustainability, the amount of heating and cooling demand that is met, and the economic viability can be explored, allowing for the design of direct-use configurations that can maximize the use and sustainability of the resource. Like many rural population centers and military installations, the town of Hawthorne, Mineral County, and the HAD lack the scientific expertise to identify and characterize their geothermal resource and the funding to engineer solutions to sustainably exploit it. This project bridges that gap by providing the end users with a set of configurations of ranging complexity and reach. It will allow local decision makers to select configurations that best meet their priorities and financial capabilities and are thus also the easiest to implement. Equally as important, is that the methodology, analysis tools, and capabilities developed in this project can be applied to other military bases and nearby communities that have undeveloped direct-use resources. This approach is also applicable to industrial sites where direct-use resources have been identified. The application of this approach at Hawthorne and its portability to other potential sites and regions will provide DOE continuous payback for years to come.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	US
Contact Person	Arlene Anderson
Program Owner	/
Website/Email	/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2017-10-01
Project End	2019-09-30
Total Budget (€)	780 786€
Funding Budget (€)	690 000€
Funding Scheme	/
Project Category	Resource Development, Identification and Assessment

Summary	The efficient production of geothermal energy requires a steady flow of hot water from an extraction well. An economic geothermal well requires high-flow volumes and, therefore, high permeability in the producing zone. For most geothermal areas, the permeability is typically a result of fracture-dominated rocks. Therefore, a robust capability to identify those unique fracture zones, prior to drilling, would be extremely useful and should increase the success rate, and optimize energy productivity from the new wells. Identifying and characterizing fracture networks at depth without the expense of drilling is difficult. We propose to develop and apply new machine learning techniques to a multi-physics (magnetotelluric and seismic) dataset at a known geothermal field (Raft River) with well data with the goal of better identifying and targeting fracture zones for drilling extraction wells. This approach will leverage the enormous body of knowledge and advanced data analysis accumulated over years in geophysics and combine it with recent advances in machine learning and in high-performance computing. If successful, we envision a user-friendly process flow, with advanced models, that can be transferred to the commercial sector to improve overall economics for this energy sector.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	US
Contact Person	Elisabet Metcalfe
Program Owner	/
Website/Email	/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2019-09-01
Project End	2021-08-31
Total Budget (€)	713 920€
Funding Budget (€)	192 280€
Funding Scheme	/
Project Category	Identification and Assessment

Summary	We propose to develop GTCloud (GeoThermal Cloud), an extendable opensource cloud-based machine learning (ML) framework to fuse site-, regional- and continental-scale geothermal data and models to estimate risk, cost, and thermal power production outputs for geothermal exploration. GTCloud will be based on artificial intelligence tools (1) to discover hidden geothermal signatures, (2) to estimate geothermal feasibility, and (3) to quantify uncertainties associated with geothermal exploration and resource development. GTCloud will be designed to be accessible on Google Cloud Platform; however, it will also be deployable on other cloud services as well. Visualization will be made available to the geothermal community via Google Cloud Platform and Descartes Labs Platform. Through ML, GTCloud will allow joint interpretation of diverse big datasets. GTCloud will utilize cloud computing, available datasets, and existing multi-physics models of thermo-geomechanics and seismic wave propagation developed at LANL to provide geothermal potential at site- and regional-scales. The risk of failure of the proposed work is low due to our preliminary results and subject-matter expertise. Our ML methods have been widely tested and have demonstrated good scalability with the problem size. Our team (LANL, Stanford, Google, Descartes Labs, and UT-BEG) has expertise in ML, geothermal resource development, big-data processing, visualization, distributed highperformance computing, and multi-physics modeling, which are needed for GTCloud development.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	US
Contact Person	Michael Weathers
Program Owner	/
Website/Email	/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2019-08-01
Project End	2021-07-31
Total Budget (€)	1 139 844€
Funding Budget (€)	459 999€
Funding Scheme	/
Project Category	Identification and Assessment, Data and Knowledge Sharing

Summary	Geothermal energy generation is a renewable technology with a high capacity factor. However, many existing geothermal assets operate well below their nameplate capacity. In 2015, U.S. geothermal energy generation was 16 TWh, which was 67% of the installed annual net generation capacity of 24 TWh and 52% of the installed annual operating name plate generation capacity of 31 TWh. Decreasing this gap involves making current plants more efficient, which includes optimizing reservoir management. Reservoir management decisions are typically based on full-field numerical simulations. We propose to improve reservoir management by integrating physics-based modeling with machine learning (ML) and to decrease the gap between energy generation and installed capacity. This approach combines high-fidelity simulations with appropriate ML technologies. NREL’s Computational Sciences Center uses high-performance computing capabilities to impact renewable energy technologies. NREL is applying ML to optimize turbulent fluid mechanics, wind plant operations, and materials data. NREL has become increasingly involved in subsurface modeling, working with Enhanced Geothermal Systems Collab (EGS Collab) participants to model thermal, hydraulic, mechanical, and chemical processes. NREL will leverage its expertise in subsurface modeling and ML with Ormat Technologies, Inc. (ORMAT); the United States Geological Survey (USGS); Quantum Reservoir Impact, LLC (QRI); and Computer Modelling Group, Inc. (CMG). ORMAT will provide well data and subsurface models for its Brady Hot Springs geothermal asset (Churchill County, NV). The USGS will provide its expertise in geological modeling of the Brady reservoir. QRI will provide guidance based on using ML to enhance oil and gas reservoir management. CMG will provide subsurface modeling software, which has ML capabilities.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	US
Contact Person	Michael Weathers
Program Owner	/
Website/Email	/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2019-07-01
Project End	2021-06-30
Total Budget (€)	1 725 000€
Funding Budget (€)	644 000€
Funding Scheme	/
Project Category	Resource Development

Summary	It is the first industrial company in Flanders who invests in a thermal storage for a district heating. This project saves CO2 throughout optimisation possibilities in the heat production of the CHP’s and the boilers, and offers extra flexibility to grab energy market opportunities.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Flanders (Belgium)
Contact Person
Program Owner
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2018-01-01
Project End	2019-12-31
Total Budget (€)	0€
Funding Budget (€)	0€
Funding Scheme
Project Category	Integration and Operation, Resource Development

Summary	The overarching target of PERFORM is to improve geothermal system performance, lower operational expenses and extend the life-time of infrastructure by the concept of combining data collection, predictive modelling, innovative technology development and in-situ validation. The improvement of geothermal plant performance from the proposed work is expected to result in an increase of the energy output by 10 to 50%. In order to reach this goal PERFORM will establish a single and shared knowledge database, build predictive models and demonstrate new and improved, cost-effective technologies which will reduce or even eliminate flow-obstructive scaling, clogging, and resistance to fluid (re-)injection at eight geothermal plants across Europe. Despite years of experience with geothermal systems, the geothermal sector still faces a significant number of underperforming doublets, posing a strong limitation on a region’s growth of geothermal energy utilization. A key operational challenge in geothermal energy production is restricted flow. Major obstacles for geothermal flow are scaling (mineral deposition), clogging (solid micro-particle deposition), corrosion and inefficient injection strategies. These issues result in high and mostly unforeseen costs for workovers, and additionally reduce production, and thus negatively impacting the business case. In order to overcome these challenges, the consolidation and sharing of knowledge, including validated strategies for prevention and mitigation needs to be in place. Based on experiences from operating geothermal sites within the EU, PERFORM will establish a single knowledge database containing information on operational, chemical and physical aspects of geothermal energy production. The database enables sharing experiences from operating geothermal doublets located in various countries and comparing the performance of the different geothermal reservoirs. PERFORM builds predictive models that allow for pinpointing the most likely sources and causes of failure, as well as the best options for injectivity improvement. The integrated models will provide forecasting for scaling, productivity, and injectivity on short- and long- time scales, supporting early warning and planning of mitigation measures. Coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical simulators will allow for evaluation of injection temperature that apart for increasing flow will also increase the energy output. Data and knowledge gathering and technology demonstration is planned for eight geothermal plants across Europe. Demonstration of new and improved, cost-effective technologies will allow for the reduction or even elimination of flow-obstructive scaling, clogging, and resistance to fluid (re-)injection. The technologies include low-cost cation extraction filters, self-cleaning particle removal appliances, H2S removal technology and soft-stimulating injection procedures (thermal and CO2-injection). The goal is to provide a set of new and improved, low-cost and environmentally friendly technology alternatives. PERFORM integrates the knowledge database, predictive modelling and advanced technologies into a design and operation toolbox, which will be tied to economical calculations. The toolbox will enable stakeholders and specifically geothermal operators to plan future operations, mitigate existing obstructions, and optimise production/injection procedures, thus ensuring maximum energy production when needed.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Netherlands
Contact Person	ir. V. Van Pul-Verboom
Program Owner	Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy (Ministerie van EZK)
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2018-05-01
Project End	2021-10-31
Total Budget (€)	876 575€
Funding Budget (€)	692 325€
Funding Scheme	Energy Innovation - Renewable Energy (Hernieuwbare Energie)
Project Category

Summary	CAGE is the acronym of: “Composite casing and the Acceleration of Geothermal Energy”. The CAGE project is a development and demonstration project that combines several cost saving and output improving installation technologies to a new geothermal energy (GE) mining concept, suitable especially for limestone reservoirs and target depths of 0.8 to 1.4 km. Total cost savings will be 20-25%, while the productivity of the well will improve 200-300%. The project is focussed on the installation of an innovative 1.3 km deep full-composite GE doublet at the Gipmans glasshouse horticulture company near Venlo, The Netherlands, where all the developed technologies will be demonstrated. The CAGE concept comprises: • Extensive preparative geological studies to determine the optimal locations (permeable layers, fractures, karstified zones) • Easy to drill, low cost and low risk wells to the end of the limestone layer. o Easy to drill means straight and vertical o Low cost refers to crane-based drilling enabled by lightweight (composite) casing o Low risk means using casing while drilling technology to avoid problems with borehole stability and running the casing through karstified zones • High Strength Composite Casing o Lightweight enables light, compact and low cost drilling equipment o Corrosion resistant (composite) casing, which saves on maintenance costs and enables airlift technology o Transparent for several logging techniques, which allows acquiring data from the subsurface during and after the installation. • Enhanced Radial Jetting (drilling) to increase the flow rate up to the maximum capacity of the casing, and enabled by data collection and processing: o Continuous Digital Mud Logging (cuttings & cavings monitoring) o Near-well seismic imaging using drill bit interferometry o Improved logging due to see-through properties of composite casing o Acoustic Multi Sensoric Process Analysis: MWjet + MWstim • Last but not least; use (surface-based) airlift technology to replace the expensive (down-hole) Electrical Submergible Pump (ESP).
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Netherlands
Contact Person	MSc G. van Og
Program Owner	Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy (Ministerie van EZK)
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2011-05-01
Project End	2018-05-01
Total Budget (€)	12 967 703€
Funding Budget (€)	5 298 482€
Funding Scheme	Energy Innovation - Renewable Energy (Hernieuwbare Energie)
Project Category

Summary
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Netherlands
Contact Person	ir M. Hanegraaf
Program Owner	Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy (Ministerie van EZK)
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2020-01-01
Project End	2022-12-31
Total Budget (€)	18 789 887€
Funding Budget (€)	9 300 401€
Funding Scheme	Climate Goals - Mission-driven Research, Development and Innovation / Multi-year Mission Driven Innovation Programs (MOOI /MMIP)
Project Category

Summary	Trias Westland B.V. is developing a second geothermal double in the Westland. Part of this is an optimization of well technology and well design to make geothermal energy robust and future-proof. The geothermal sector in the Netherlands is relatively young. Twenty projects have been realized and more and more knowledge and experience is being developed. But there is also still a lot of development potential. Trias Westland is developing a new type of steel pipe for the geothermal wells. On the inside, the tube is lined with glass fiber reinforced epoxy. This project is aimed at demonstration of this technology. In addition, the well design is optimized. Instead of three different diameters based mainly on oil and gas production, the new well design is performed with two different and larger diameters. This allows geothermal projects to be operated at lower investment and operational costs. Continuous monitoring of the geothermal wells is also possible, which means that risks of leaks become zero. Specific problems that this project offers a solution are: • corrosion of the steel casing of the geothermal wells; • early depreciation of geothermal projects due to corrosion; • use of chemicals to prevent corrosion and unknown effect on soil and environment; • sub-optimal design of the casing of the geothermal wells; • monitoring of well integrity. The results of this project are: • steel pipes with GRE lining; • 6.2 million kg CO2 emissions reduction over the 30-year period as a result of the GRE lining; • no use of chemicals (inhibitor) to prevent corrosion; • reduction of the risk of decommissioning a geothermal project due to corroded steel pipes; • evaluation report 1 year after commissioning of the geothermal doublet; • optimization of the well design allowing constant monitoring of the well integration.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Netherlands
Contact Person	G. Schurink
Program Owner	Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy (Ministerie van EZK)
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2019-07-15
Project End	2021-07-14
Total Budget (€)	3 950 000€
Funding Budget (€)	840 000€
Funding Scheme	Demonstration projects on Energy Innovation (Subsidie demonstratie energie-innovatie (DEI)
Project Category

Summary	The goal of this project is to assess the techno-economic viability of DRA’s for geothermal multi-source district heating networks. The project investigates the technical and economic contribution of DRA’s to district heating networks and geothermal wells. The DRAGLOW project focuses on the development of technical knowledge and system design tools which should lead to practical usable solutions and instruments for cost-effective geothermal Multi-Source district heating systems in the built environment. Preliminary analysis revealed that substantial reduction in CAPEX and OPEX is feasible by controlling the flow resistance in the pipelines and all subsystems of the district heating system. If the flow resistance can be reduced substantially, 20-30% cost reduction is within reach. DRA’s lower the pumping and construction costs in oil pipelines by reducing the friction between the oil and the pipe surface. This concept triggered the idea to apply such agents in the very cost driven geothermal and heat network systems. Several groups of molecules have drag reducing properties depending on the conditions such as liquid composition, temperature and Reynolds number.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Netherlands
Contact Person	Ing. H. Blokland
Program Owner	Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy (Ministerie van EZK)
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2021-03-01
Project End	2024-03-01
Total Budget (€)	2 905 825€
Funding Budget (€)	1 845 331€
Funding Scheme	Energy Innovation - Renewable Energy (Hernieuwbare Energie)
Project Category

Summary	CAGE is a development and demonstration project. The overall objective of the project is CO2 emission reduction through the wider use of Geothermal Energy (GE), accelerated by the demonstration of an innovative, cost-reducing and production improving shallow GE concept, targeting Cretaceous chalks and Carboniferous limestone formations. The CAGE demonstration consisted of the installation of a 1.3 km deep full-composite GE doublet at the Gipmans glasshouse horticulture company near Venlo in the Netherlands. The concept comprises Enhanced Composite Casing Installation (ECCI) technology using High Strength Composite Casing (HSCC) to reduce the costs by 20-30%, followed by Enhanced Radial Jetting (ERJ), to increase the production up to the maximum capacity of the HSCC. The installation is concluded with a (surface-based) airlift technology demonstration to replace the expensive (down-hole) Electrical Submergible Pump (ESP). It also includes adequate preparatory geological studies of the targeted area and monitoring techniques to fine-tune the image of the actual drilling and jetting location. After the successful demonstration, the shallow GE concept will be extended to greater depths and rolled out at locations with similar geology. The CAGE project also provides an overview of the high-potential areas and a road map for the exploitation of the high-potential areas in the participating EU member states. To achieve these ambitious goals the CAGE project has been set up in which four main work packages are distinguished: 1. Preparatory desk-studies 2. Development of the full-composite mechanical connection 3. Demonstration of the shallow GE concept and technologies 4. Dissemination of results
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Netherlands
Contact Person	Willem de Jong
Program Owner	RVO
Website/Email	http://www.geothermica.eu/projects/cage/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2018-05-01
Project End	2021-11-01
Total Budget (€)	13 457 698€
Funding Budget (€)	5 834 888€
Funding Scheme	GEOTHERMICA Call 1
Project Category

Summary	Within the German part of the geothermal project DEEP, the construction and operation of seismic observatories at three geothermal case study sites with different depths, types of energy storage and structural underground conditions in Germany is to be established. The selected study sites will be planned and implemented by Fraunhofer IEG in Bochum. With combined preliminary work on the construction of predictive models of potential seismic effects and online monitoring with subsequent model validation, we aim at parameterizing the seismicity potentially induced by drilling and geothermal production at the case study sites. The application of beamforming technology to ambient seismic noise is crucial for a thorough reservoir characterization. Time-reverse imaging will be applied to recorded data and further developed as an innovative tool for detailed analysis of induced seismicity. Extensive laboratory investigations on relevant rocks under simulated in-situ conditions will be carried out in order to characterize the reservoirs in the best possible way. The results will be used to adapt well design and production techniques and to define parameters for minimizing the risk of induced seismicity during geothermal exploration and production.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Germany
Contact Person	Prof. Dr. Erik Saenger, [email protected]
Program Owner	Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Aktion
Website/Email	https://www.ieg.fraunhofer.de/de/referenzprojekte/deep.html
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2020-09-01
Project End	2023-08-31
Total Budget (€)	660 674€
Funding Budget (€)	660 674€
Funding Scheme	7. Energy Research Program - Geothermal
Project Category	Resource Development

Summary	The aim of this subproject is to scale the newly developed SIMFIP technology and test protocol to laboratory scale (decimeter scale) in order to perform a series of tests on cubic rock samples under stress controlled boundary conditions. This allows comprehensive, systematic tests of the technology under different and known stress conditions and geometric constellations of fractures. This allows the relationship between the measured, three-dimensional displacement response of the borehole wall and a controlled triaxial stress state to be investigated. The combination of this sub-project with the other four sub-projects will lead to the technical maturity of the probe and a robust test protocol for the acquisition of systematic stress profiles in crystalline rock. This will make it much easier to estimate in advance the efficiency of hydraulic stimulation and the induced seismicity to be expected in connection with the creation of a geothermal reservoir.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Germany
Contact Person	Prof. Dr. Florian Amann; [email protected]
Program Owner	Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Aktion
Website/Email	https://www.lih.rwth-aachen.de/cms/LIH/Forschung/Ingenieurgeologie/Aktuelle-Projekte/~lovpu/Spannungsprofilierung-in-verbesserten-ge/?lidx=1
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2020-09-01
Project End	2023-08-31
Total Budget (€)	1 040 702€
Funding Budget (€)	970 194€
Funding Scheme	7. Energy Research Program - Geothermal
Project Category	Resource Development

Summary	The UNLIMITED project aims to develop the necessary basis for lithium production from hot thermal water in Germany. The investigations include the Upper Rhine Graben and the North German Basin, where increased lithium contents in thermal waters have already been proven. For this purpose, the sustainability of lithium production will be investigated and evaluated site-specifically and regionally, and various adsorbents will be tested in a demonstrator under the conditions of a geothermal plant in operation. With regard to sustainable management, not only the origin of the dissolved lithium is important, but also an understanding of essential reservoir processes. In this context, the research project UNLIMITED includes topics such as resource analyses, technically possible extraction rate.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Germany
Contact Person	M.Eng. Elif KAYMAKCI; [email protected]
Program Owner	Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Aktion
Website/Email	https://www.geothermal-lithium.org/
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2020-12-01
Project End	2023-11-30
Total Budget (€)	3 291 355€
Funding Budget (€)	2 785 527€
Funding Scheme	7. Energy Research Program - Geothermal
Project Category	Resource Development

Summary	The aim of the project is to provide a modular, cost-efficient and reliable construction kit for high-temperature electronics for deep geothermal applications. This is a mandatory preliminary work in a pre-prototyping phase in order to reduce the costs and technical risks for drilling, completion and permanent installations in a targeted manner. In this way, the basis is laid for reducing energy production costs from geothermal energy sources and accelerating the expansion. In addition to mechanical, electromechanical and hydraulic assemblies, electronic assemblies are the most important components in drilling, completion and pump systems for deep geothermal energy. Due to ambient temperatures of 150-200 °C, they are at the limits of what is technically feasible and require optimisation in terms of robustness, temperature resistance and costs. The electronic components are to be further developed in the project by using integrated circuit technology (ASIC technology) and optimised assembly and connection technology (MCM technology). A construction kit of ASIC design blocks is to be designed and tested in a 180 nm technology suitable for high temperatures. This will significantly reduce complexity and costs per functional unit and save entire assemblies. For the MCM technology, expensive components such as hermetic housings and ceramic circuit boards are to be replaced by cheaper solutions and manufacturability and integrability are to be improved. The optimized ASIC and MCM technology will be characterized in life cycle tests for suitability at 175-200°C in geothermal applications. The project will make a significant contribution to the later development of prototype tools for drilling, completion and permanent installation in deep geothermal energy and will strengthen Celle as a location and Germany as an industrial location in the long term.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Germany
Contact Person	Prof. Dr.-Ing. Sven Krüger; [email protected]
Program Owner	Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Aktion
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2021-03-01
Project End	2024-08-31
Total Budget (€)	4 334 271€
Funding Budget (€)	1 950 422€
Funding Scheme	7. Energy Research Program - Geothermal
Project Category	Integration and Operation

Summary	The aim of the project is the mechanical and process engineering implementation of scaled geothermal energy exploration. An economical and reliable installation technology is required for the construction of large-scale ground collectors. The project objective is divided into two main focal points: 1. verification and validation of the machine system development The core of the project is to tie in with the results achieved in the previous project 'KollWeb 4.0'. In concrete terms, this means the systematic commissioning, testing and validation of the installation solution set up for the flat installation of geothermal collectors. 2.) Validation of the installation process development Another essential aspect is the systematic investigation, development and provision of the construction technology in interaction with the machine system under operating conditions. This linkage is the decisive key for a cost-effective, functionally safe and reliable overall assembly of the collector system. The project is a follow-up project to the 'KollWeb 4.0' project.
Organization(s)	This project does not have organizations
Country/Region	Germany
Contact Person	Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil Thomas Herlitzius; [email protected]
Program Owner	Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Aktion
Status	Ongoing
Project Start	2021-03-01
Project End	2025-02-28
Total Budget (€)	0€
Funding Budget (€)	4 935 189€
Funding Scheme	7. Energy Research Program - Geothermal
Project Category	Integration and Operation