Fri, 24 January, 2020
The use of geothermal resources has prospered amidst declining use of fossil fuels and the urgent need for a transition towards the green economy. Despite the unprecedented pace of innovations for optimising existing geothermal solutions in terms of efficiency and economics, challenges remain in making the technology lucrative for investors antagonised by the high upfront, operational and maintenance costs. In recent years, the secure, clean and efficient energy work programme within Horizon 2020 has tremendously supported research, demonstration, innovation and market-uptake actions across different low-carbon energy sectors, particularly so in the geothermal sector, thereby offering opportunities to develop innovative technologies to enhance the exploitation and sustainability of geothermal energy.
Building on its expertise in coatings, material properties and performance, TWI continues to push boundaries of technological innovations tapping into geothermal resources with two new initiatives:
- GeoHex - Production of innovative materials for heat exchange performance for geothermal applications
- GEOPRO - Gaining understanding of the chemical and physical properties of geothermal fluids as heat transport media.
The projects GeoHex and GEOPRO, kicked-off in November 2019 and will run for a period of 36 months. Recently, the projects successfully launched their websites at www.geohexproject.eu/ and www.geoproproject.eu/ respectively. The sites enable the users to find out more about the projects and their services, the international consortia and the expected impact on the European Geothermal market.
Acknowledgements
The projects leading to this application has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 851917 (GeoHex) and 851816 (GEOPRO).
