Underground Large Scale Seasonal Energy Storage for Decarbonized and Reliable Heat

Research Project, 2023 – 2027

USES4HEAT aims to demonstrate innovative, large scale, seasonal thermal energy storage (TES) solutions enabling a future decarbonized and reliable heating supply. At TRL8 and during a one-year test campaign, USES4HEAT showcases two innovative, cost-effective, large scale, seasonal underground TES (UTES) units, specifically aquifer TES (ATES) and high-temperature borehole TES (BTES), to maximize heating supply availability and resilience while reducing energy losses and environmental impact. USES4HEAT seeks to demonstrate these TES units as fully integrated components in commercial large-scale district heating networks (DHN), integrating industrial waste heat recovery and fulfilling industrial thermal demand. Additionally, USES4HEAT presents six innovative key enabling components/technologies integrated with seasonal TES: a) advanced ATES drilling equipment and remotely controlled machines halving drilling times, b) innovative layered BTES collectors with plastic piping materials ensuring elevated performance at high temperature (95°C), c) innovative groundwater heat pump (HP) at high temperature using low global warming potential (GWP) fluids and fully connected to ATES and DHN, d) enhanced hybrid photovoltaic-thermal (PVT) solar panels integrated with UTES boosting sector coupling, e) concentrated solar thermal collectors fully integrated with large-scale seasonal UTES maximizing solar availability exploitation and diversifying thermal energy sources, f) AI, big-data analytics, and cloud-based intelligent predictive energy management software, and predictive operation and maintenance (O&M) tools for optimized integrated system operation from technical and economic perspectives.