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Information about the potential of deep and medium-deep geothermal energy will be supplied in a user-friendly format to support municipal heating suppliers and regional decision-makers.

© Stephen Dawson, Unsplash

The potential of geothermal energy – underground heat – is vast in Germany, but remains largely untapped. These aquifers could be a valuable resource for municipal heating network operators, who are under growing pressure to decarbonise. But how can they be sure if there’s enough subsurface energy potential to exploit?

To answer this question, Germany’s GeotIS (Geothermal Information System) project is being expanded to include medium-depth boreholes up to 2,000 metres. Since GeotIS was launched in 2006 by the Leibniz Institute for Applied Geophysics, it has sunk more than 30,000 boreholes but mainly at greater depths of up to 5,000 metres.

In the ArtermIS project, LIAG, which is to be undertaken by the Georg-August University of Göttingen and the Technical University of Darmstadt, information about the potential of deep and medium-deep geothermal energy will be supplied in a user-friendly format – including 3D temperature maps – on an e-learning platform to support municipal heating suppliers and regional decision-makers.

The latest technology including artificial intelligence and deep learning methods will be used for drilling data and analysis. The geothermal output of a doublet operation (where an aquifer’s hot water is extracted and cooled water is injected) could then be estimated within a region, for instance.

The team of eight geoscientists and computer scientists are working on the project until the end of 2024. GeotIS is funded by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Action (BMWK).