A techno-economic evaluation of high temperature thermal aquifer storage (HT-ATES) for use with the geothermal well on the TU Delft campus

“Direct use geothermal projects are often considered to be able to supply a base-load heating, which leaves a substantial portion of the heating demand to be covered by other (often fossil-based) sources during demand peaks. Additionally, during a substantial portion of the year there is less heat used from the geothermal well than is able to be produced. The consequence is that geothermal projects perform economically poorly or require substantial governmental subsidies. The use of heat storage provides a possibility to address both of these issues by providing seasonal storage of heat, thus increasing the peak supply and utilising more heat from the geothermal well. Given the required storage capacity needed for such projects, Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) is the only realistic storage option. This paper presents a techno-economic analysis of using a High Temperature (HT)-ATES system in conjunction with a 2.2km deep direct use geothermal project for the TU Delft campus. The geothermal project has been designed as a living lab, a research and operational project, and adding an HT-ATES system would add to this dual purpose.”

(Citation: Bloemendal, M., Vardon, P.J., Pijnenborg, M., Sudintas, G., Medema, A., Marif, K., Beernink, S., van Veldhuizen, F., Snelleman, S., van Oort, T. – A techno-economic evaluation of high temperature thermal aquifer storage (HT-ATES) for use with the geothermal well on the TU Delft campus – World Geothermal Congress 2021)