Novel approaches to geothermal resources development

Expected Outcome:Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Developers and energy providers benefit from de-risking and cost reduction of geothermal resource development;
• Citizens benefit from energy efficient, sustainable, generation of electricity, direct heat, and/or heating and cooling from geothermal resources in a wide range of geological settings;
• Technology leadership, competitiveness, and technology export potential of European industry in the geothermal energy supply chain are increased;
• The technological innovation is environmentally sound, aligned with societal values, norms and behavioural aspects of end users and actors across the whole geothermal value chain, improving energy justice and citizenship.

Scope:Proposals should focus on the demonstration of innovative approaches to resource development in: (i) the area of shallow & low/mid enthalpy geothermal (0-500 meter-depth and temperature below 150ºC) and/or (ii) in the area of deep & high enthalpy geothermal (beyond 500 meter-depth and temperature above 150ºC). Proposals should also expressly identify whether they are addressing the area of (i) shallow geothermal; (ii) deep geothermal; or (iii) both shallow and deep geothermal.

Drilling and subsurface engineering account for a large part of the costs of geothermal projects, and on-field project development contains significant risks due to inherent geological uncertainties. Reducing costs upfront, improving performance, estimating uncertainty, and reducing risk can therefore boost the geothermal capacity deployment rate.

The scope covers advances beyond the state of the art in one/several of the following points:

• subsurface engineering;
• well design, drilling and completion;
• reservoir characterisation and development planning.

Proposals should include one or more of the following: robot and AI-physics-based simulation solutions for geothermal resource development, novel cost-efficient drilling methods and equipment, advanced drilling fluids, new materials for casing, cementing and completion, working fluids, logging while drilling, wireline technologies and geosteering high temperature electronics, well architecture and stimulation, closed loop technology, enhanced production pumps, and innovative monitoring systems during geothermal resources exploitation including their integration in digital twins.

Proposals are expected to reduce project development time while ensuring safety of operations and adaptation to specific geothermal environments (including offshore), constraining and quantifying geological uncertainties, reducing field development and seismic risks. They can include standardisation of the drilling equipment enhanced well production, enhanced environmental performance, improve component resistance to corrosion, scaling, high temperature, wear, and mechanical failures, increase energy extraction.

The project must include a clear go/no-go milestone ahead of entering the demonstration phase of the project. Before this go/no-go milestone, delivery of the detailed engineering plans, a techno-economic assessment, and all needed permits for the demonstrator should be foreseen. The project proposal is expected to present a clear and convincing pathway and timeline to obtaining the permits.

Environmental impact of the proposal should be assessed, and mitigation measures considered.

Where relevant, the project is expected to follow FAIR data principles, adopt data quality standards, data integration operating procedures and GDPR-compliant data sharing/access good practices developed by the European research infrastructures.

In order to enhance the benefits of the technology, proposals are expected to develop understandings of how the utilisation of geothermal resources aligns with the cultural values and contextual settings at local to regional level and increase the responsiveness of geothermal energy to diverse societal interests and concerns. To achieve that, an inclusive, early and continuous societal engagement should be enhanced.

In particular, this topic requires the effective contribution of SSH disciplines and the involvement of SSH experts, institutions as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise (applied to social innovation), in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities.