Time: 12:00 to 12:45 (CET)
Venue: via Zoom
Deep geothermal energy as a solution to decarbonize the Swiss energy system presentation given by Luca Guglielmetti, Yasin Makhloufi, Andrea Moscariello (UNIGE)
Geothermal energy is a renewable, sustainable and reliable energy source that provides solutions for both power generation and heat production and storage. If up to 10 years ago, the global market was dominated by power production projects and, in Switzerland, it was mostly focused on shallow ground-source heat pumps applications, the geothermal sector is now transitioning towards hydrothermal projects suitable to supply heat to district heating networks. Thanks to support measures aiming at supporting deep geothermal projects promoted by the Swiss confederation, hydrothermal projects are blooming across the Swiss Plateau, in particular in the Romandie region. However, identifying the suitable regions requires a multi-criteria approach that allows combining surface criteria related to the energy demand distribution and subsurface criteria to identify the optimal geothermal resource.
Our work comprises of screening the potential for geothermal systems across the Swiss Molasse Basin. The potential is evaluated according to the publicly available data, by combining subsurface data (e.g. depth of the targets, thickness of the targets, petrophysical parameters, temperature distribution at different depth) and energy data (e.g. heat demand and excess heat configurations and distributions, thermal network distribution) in order to identify the most promising areas.
The methods developed at UniGe is a cost-effective and time efficient method providing a key solution for stakeholders during the decision making phase, helping in new data acquisition planning; exploration and risk vs opportunity assessment.
