The basic idea of Cheap-GSHPs project is to substantially reduce the total cost of ownership, composed out of investment and operating costs, increase the safety of shallow geothermal systems during installation and operation and increase the awareness of this technology throughout Europe.

Cheap-GSHPs aims at reducing the installation costs of the GSHE’s up to 25-30% and contributing to the environment with a reduction of CO2 emissions of 1.800 T/y.

The proposal will focus on one hand on the development of more efficient and safe shallow geothermal systems and the reduction of the installation costs. This will be realized first by improving drastically an existing, innovative vertical borehole installation technology and the design of coaxialsteel GSHE and second, newly designed basket type GSHE’s with novel installation methodologies will be developed. With a view to improve safety and reduce permitting requirements the improved coaxial GSHE’s will be installed respectively to depths of 40 – 50 meters and the basket type GSHE’s to 15 – 20 meters. This doesn’t prevent however the coaxial GSHE’s to be installed up to depths of 100 – 120 meters.

On the other hand, the proposal will develop a decision support system (DSS) and other design tools covering the geological and drillability aspects, feasibility and economic evaluations based on different plant set-up options, selection, design, installation, commissioning and operation of low enthalpy geothermal systems. These tools will be made publicly available on the web at different levels for respectively non-expert and expert users, including comprehensive training to lower the market entry threshold.

Given that drilling and GSHE technologies are mature but costly, this holistic approach is included in the proposal to bring the overall cost of the total project down, i.e. not just the cost of the GSHE itself but the avoidance of ground response tests, the reduction of the engineering costs for the design of the GSHE and the integration of heat pumps with building heating and cooling systems.Drilling Also the use of the novel heat pumps for higher temperatures developed within the project will reduce the costs in the market for retrofitting buildings, in particular for historical ones, when replacement of the high temperature terminals can be avoided. The developments will be demonstrated in six sites with different undergrounds and climate conditions, whilst the tools will be applied to several virtual demo cases.

Cheap-GSHPs will address these barriers with particular focus on capital cost reduction and increased awareness whilst improving safety as well.

Cheap-GSHPs will address first of all the improvement of the installation and operating efficiency of shallow geothermal systems, reducing the installation costs of the GSHE’s, with 25 to 30 %, increasing the deployment of this technology by at least 10% versus current estimates and contribute to the environment with an additional reduction rate of CO2 emissions of 1.800T/y.

The proposal will focus on improving the yield and reducing the cost of two types of vertical BHE’s by developing drilling machines and improving the BHE design. The two types of GSHE’s are respectively the coaxial steel BHE and the heat basket type GSHE.

The first type is installed using either the ‘vibrasond‘ or the ‘easy drill‘ technique of partner HYDRA. The vibrasond technique is patented in Italy (patent number 0001398341). Several installations have been installed in Northern Italy over the last 5 years.

In Belgium the technology has been awarded an innovation price and more than 7000 m of BHE’s were installed in the period 2011 – 2015. This fairly new technology, cost competitive with the conventional single and double U BHE’s, still has a lot of potential. This potential will be developed in this project by realizing a purpose built drilling machine, combining both before mentioned techniques on one machine basis. Several improvements to the coaxial BHE will be made as well.

The heat basket type GSHE is today mainly used in horizontal applications. This type of GSHE has a large heat exchange surface leading to high extraction rates but due to the larger diameters of 400 to 500 mm, actual drilling machines and costs are limiting the vertical applications to depths of 10 m. The project will advance the drilling machines and techniques to exploit these heat basket type BHE’s at higher depths with smaller diameters following cost/benefit optimization of the different machine options.

With respect to safety, the heat basket type of GSHE’s will most likely remain at depths higher than 40 – 50 m potentially reducing interactions with shallow aquifers used as potable water supplies. The coaxial steel BHE’s do not need grouting when the vibrason installation technique is used. In other words, the safety is built in.ecoliada

The project will also develop decision support and other design tools covering the hydro-geological data bases and drillability; the feasibility and economic evaluation of different plant set-ups; the selection and design of low enthalpy geothermal systems. These tools will not only include GSHE’s but also heat pumps which in the end are an integral part of such systems next to plant configurations with other renewable energy sources like solar thermal which create synergies. These tools will be made publicly available via web-portal at the end of the project.

In addition, the safety, regulatory and environmental aspects are being addressed across all the components of the system going from the geological aspects over the GSHE’s and their installation to the heat pumps and the integration within historical, existing and new buildings and districts.

To summarize, the project aims at building an innovative drilling machine and at substantially improving GSHE’s in several of its aspects and expand the field of applications. In addition, an end to end approach will be developed to select and deliver from a cost and safety perspective the optimum system including heat pumps and plant configurations including the integration of other synergy creating Renewable Energy systems.

To reduce the total cost of low enthalpy geothermal systems by 20-30 %, the project will improve actual drilling/installation technologies and designs of Ground Source Heat Exchangers (GSHE’s). This will be combined with a holistic approach for optimum selection, design and implementation of complete systems across different underground and climate conditions.

 

The proposal will focus on one hand on the development of more efficient and safe shallow geothermal systems and the reduction of the installation costs. This will be realised by improving drastically an existing, innovative vertical borehole installation technology of coaxial steel GSHE and by developing a helix type GSHE with a new, innovative installation methodology. These GSHE’s will be installed to a depth of 40 – 50 meters, with a view to improving safety and reducing permitting requirements.

 

On the other hand, the proposal will develop a decision support system (DSS) and other design tools covering the geological aspects, feasibility and economic evaluations based on different plant set-up options, selection, design, installation, commissioning and operation of low enthalpy geothermal systems. These tools will be made publicly available on the web to users, including comprehensive training to lower the market entry threshold.

Given that drilling and GSHE technologies are mature but costly, this holistic approach is included in the proposal to bring the overall cost of the total project down, i.e. not just the cost of the GSHE itself but the avoidance of ground response tests, the engineering costs for the design of the GSHE and the integration of heat pumps with building heating and cooling systems.

Also the use of the novel heat pumps for higher temperatures developed within the project will reduce the costs in the market for retroffiting buildings, in particular for historical ones, where high temperature terminals are present. The developments will be demonstrated in six sites with different undergrounds and climate conditions, whilst the tools will be applied to several virtual demo cases.

Author: cheapgshpsadmin

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