Drilling started for the exploratory well for underground heat storage in Delft!
Ready for take-off! At the campus of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands we just started drilling the exploratory well for the underground heat storage.
Going underground to accelerate the heat transition
The geothermal energy well at TU Delft campus will provide sustainable heat for various buildings on campus and in the city of Delft. But it provides insufficient heat in winter, and excessive heat in summer. Adding underground seasonal storage allows surplus summer heat to be put to good use in winter. Martin Bloemendal and his team develop the means to make integration of such an underground seasonal buffer possible at a large scale.
At the PUSH-IT pilot site in Delft, heat will be stored in groundwater reservoirs at a depth of about 200m, with confining earth layers providing natural isolation – much like in a thermos flask. Storing the heat much closer to the surface, when compared to the geothermal well, allows it to be pumped up cheaply.
“The technology is ready, we now want to demonstrate it to be both feasible and economically viable. It’s truly pioneering.”
– Martin Bloemendal, associate professor of Underground Thermal Energy Storage at TU Delft.
Read the full post about the pilot in Delft and Martin’s road and future perspectives in this Story of Science ‘Going underground to accelerate the heat transition‘.
PUSH-IT is a project funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101096566.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
