Low carbon heating and cooling by combining various technologies with Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage

Abstract

A transition to a low carbon energy system is needed to respond to global challenge of climate change mitigation. Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) is a technology with worldwide potential to provide sustainable space heating and cooling by (seasonal) storage and recovery of heat in the subsurface. However, adoption of ATES varies strongly across Europe, because of both technical as well as organizational barriers, e.g. differences in climatic and subsurface conditions and legislation respectively. After identification of all these barriers in a Climate-KIC research project, six ATES pilot systems have been installed in five different EU-countries aiming to show how such barriers can be overcome. This paper presents the results of the barrier analysis and of the pilot plants. The barriers are categorized in general barriers, and barriers for mature and immature markets. Two pilots show how ATES can be successfully used to redevelop contaminated sites by combining ATES with soil remediation. Two other pilots show the added value of ATES because its storage capacity enables the utilization of solar heat in combination with solar power production.

Solid Fuels Technology and Applications.

“…The aforementioned results (Table 3) indicate that Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage is one of the most promising technological options that provides large storage capacities [93,94]. By utilising the subsurface space in these sites, Underground Thermal Energy Storage systems potentially provide sustainable heating and cooling energy for different building types.…”

Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) for District Heating and Cooling: A Novel Modeling Approach Applied in a Case Study of a Finnish Urban District

“…The variability of renewable generation between heating and cooling seasons, as well as the low coincidence between supply and demand are important challenges for RES penetration, therefore short-and long-term energy storage is needed for maximizing the usage of RES. Aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES) is an attractive technological option suitable for large buildings and utilities as well as capable to enable important storage capacities [2,3]. Moreover, the utilization of GSHP operating within the urban subsurface space, is an efficient and resilient alternative for sustainable generation of heating and cooling energy in a district level [4].…”

An innovative plant integrating PVT and geothermal reversible heat pump for heating and cooling in residential applications

“…In the past few years, a lot of research has taken place in the design, optimization, operation and control of HRESs (Rekioua,2020). In particular, the integration of PVT with several geothermal systems have been explored, like PVT and heat pumps with borehole heat exchangers (Bertram et al, 2011;Yao et al, 2020) or PVT and open-loop ground source heat pumps (Pellegrini et al, 2019;Hoekstra et al, 2020). Since PVT collectors can be substantially classified into systems that are designed to optimize the heat production or the power production, several combinations of PVT, heat pumps and geothermal for renewable power, heating and cooling generation in buildings can be found in literature.…”