| Project Detail |
The role of power, heating and cooling is critical to achieve the EU objective of climate neutrality by 2050. Heating and cooling represent today 46% of EU energy system, that is, more than 5700 TWh, out of which, only 18% are produced with renewable sources of heating. To exploit the geothermal for energy balancing at scale, it is essential to focus on the best use of low to medium temperature resources because Europe possesses mostly low-enthalpy resources at temperature ranging from 110oC to 170oC and they are predominantly found in sedimentary formations such as the Pannonian Basin or the Upper Rhein Graben. EGS based geothermal can be developed anywhere across the EU.
Low to medium temperature geothermal field developed based on either hydrothermal resources or EGS can be technically exploited by binary or ORC plant for power generation. Flexible ORC operation to produce load following power is economically challenging. nGEL is aiming to transform a geothermal ORC plant to a flexible tri-generation plant capable of both efficiently as well as cost effectively responding to the dynamic demand of power, heating, and cooling, attributing geothermal energy as a dispatchable source to balance the power and thermal grid against the progressive integration of intermittent RES (i.e. solar, wind). This will be achieved through the integration of absorption chiller, thermal energy storage, cold thermal energy storage, heat exchangers, smart control and energy management system (EMS) with AI functionalities. EMS will schedule the production and distribution of power, heat and cooling by interacting day-ahead market, grid operator, and analysing predicted energy demand and prices.
If the nGEL technology can be implemented in all of the existing ORC plants in the EU, around 215 TWht heat can be delivered to the thermal grid, which is approximately 4% of the EU current annual heat demand, which corresponds to annual economic saving (on NG import) of € 9.6 billion/year. |
