CONTENT:

The ACTION Geothermal-DHC addresses the inclusion of geothermal technologies into district heating and cooling systems in Europe to foster the de-carbonization of the heating & cooling market. Geothermal may act as a heating source, sink or storage and may be combined with other renewables (e.g. solar thermal), waste heat and other technologies like carbon capture and utilization. The ACTION covers networking, knowledge exchange & transfer, training and stakeholder interaction activities based on real life case studies to investigate and promote solutions and roadmaps for raising the RES share in public heating and cooling grids to at least 30% in 2030 and at least 50% in 2050. From a technological point of view, Geothermal-DHC addresses:

• shallow geothermal energy;
• engineered thermo-active building structures;
• medium depth geothermal energy (e.g. refitted abandoned hydrocarbon wells);
• deep geothermal energy in terms of hydrogeothermal and petrothermal systems;
• unconventional geothermal application (e.g. geothermal-CCUS);
• underground thermal energy storage;
• conventional high temperature heating grids (2G to 3G DH);
• low temperature heating and/or cooling grids (4G to 5G DH);
• geothermal combined heat and power production.

By the end of the COST Action, the following outputs will be available:

• a dedicated web portal on the inclusion of geothermal energy into heating and cooling grids in cooperation with the European Geothermal Energy Council (EGEC);
• a digital knowledge repository at the web portal on geothermal heating and cooling grids;
• digital fact sheets and technological guidelines on the inclusion of geothermal energy into heating and cooling grids;
• an educational concept to train the next generation of researchers and decision makers;
• a joint roadmap towards the inclusion of geothermal energy into heating and cooling grids across Europe.

GeoZS is very actively involved in the project. It is an Ex-committee member, a co-leader of the PWG 3 “Promoting Young Careers”, and the Short Term Scientific Mission (STSM) representative.