Year: 2020

On Wednesday and Thursday 4th & 5th November, We Held Our GA#6!

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The GEOFIT consortium successfully held our 6th General Assembly (GA) on November 4th and 5th, 2020, hosted remotely by R2M Solution. Important progress has been carried concerning the design of the GEOFIT systems to be installed in each of our five pilots. And although we are facing some delays during this installation phase due to the COVID-19 sanitary situation, the geothermal field in the school of Sant Cugat has been completed during the summer and installation at other pilots is planned to start before the end of the year.

Drilling and civil works for the horizontal connection to the plant room in Sant Cugat pilot (AJSC)

During the two-day meeting, we discussed the progress of our work and individual Work Packages, putting special focus on the pilots’ progress. The project moves in the right direction and the work is getting more advanced.

Among the progress included in the partners’ presentations, overviews on the last decisions made regarding the Bordeaux and Galway pilots were shown by NUI GALWAY and NOBATEK, progress on the engineering design tool for ground heat exchangers was shown by GROENHOLLAND, as well as how the GeoBIM platform is being implemented by IDP in the more advanced demo-sites, Sant Cugat and Perugia.

Two workshops were also organized during the GA, the first one to discuss the life cycle approach within the project context, led by EURECAT, and the second one to start analyzing the pilot business cases and discuss why Geothermal is an appealing technology for building retrofitting, led by R2M.

The meeting closed by setting up the next steps and plans for the upcoming six months.

The GEOBIM Platform

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In the GEOFIT project, heating and cooling components design and integration are developed for the different layouts and demo-sites and comprise a detailed design and description of the different subsystems or components to form a complete system.

Key elements and components, as well as their specifications, are being developed and inventoried as part of the GEOFIT project activities. As in previous work, the deployment of low-invasive risk assessment, site-inspection, and worksite-building monitoring techniques extend its use as a monitoring tool for geothermal based retrofitting operations and deploy novel tools enabling the view of assets in a cartographic or a geographical environment and comparing with the information stored into GIS collectors and the Web Map Services (WMS).

A common data environment containing GIS/BIM models/sensor data allows users to locate, map, update and share objects and subsurface utility information simultaneously, contributing to the realization of a new “GEOBIM platform”. The objective of the GEOBIM platform is to assess and verify the integration of the GEOFIT solutions in specific cases developing the respective different BIM models over a geographical information layer, aiming at replication and modularity of the solutions, outputs for exploitation, impact assessment, and dissemination of the results.

The implementation of the previously defined system is addressed for buildings with different typologies and energy demands. Then, integration of the conditions and the building’s engineering specifications are defined within the GEOBIM platform.

The GEOBIM platform considers the scalability and flexibility of the data integration and analysis tools development to support interoperability among the elements installed. The design inputs come from:

  1. Boreholes and ground excavations information
  2. Geothermal heat exchangers designs
  3. Ground source heat pumps designs
  4. Heat pumps designs
  5. Heating and cooling systems designs
  6. Sensors information
  7. Simulations data

By covering the 7 dimensions of the #BIM approach, the GEOBIM platform implements the following functions:

  • Project visualization
  • Data management
  • Demo-site analysis functions
  • Geothermal performance
  • Heating/Cooling performance
  • GEOFIT assets management
  • CAPEX
  • The lifecycle of systems and assets

Within the GEOBIM platform development (understood as a common data environment), model-based cooperation is the advanced portrayal of the general GEOFIT development process. This portrayal is made in collaboration with the different partners involved in the design, modeling, construction/fabrication, installation, and commissioning, who utilize different CAD-based tools. The Common Data Environment (CDE) is characterized as a typical advanced task space, which gives very much characterized collaborative territory to the undertaking partners joined with clear status definitions and a strong work process portrayal for sharing and endorsement forms and objects data.

Written by Sergio Velasquez, from IDP

Want to learn more?

➜ Click on this link to have a look a the 10 Geobim videos posted on the project’s Youtube channel and thank you for watching!

Videos produced by COMET

Ground Penetrating Radar Analysis at Perugia

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On the 6th of October, IDS GeoRadar was at the pilot in Perugia to perform a Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) survey over the area where excavation works will be executed. 

Nowadays, GPR is commonly used to detect both metallic and nonmetallic underground objects, as well as providing 3D location, reporting depth, and “X,Y” location.  

However, this technology has some drawbacks. Mainly, that it requires an expert, typically a trained geophysicist, to interpret the scans. In GEOFIT this issue was addressed and an algorithm, capable of detecting most of the buried utilities, has been developed. 

At Perugia, IDS GeoRadar used a recently developed compact GPR array solution designed to provide a 3D mapping of underground utilities. This is called STREAM C and uses a massive antenna array with two polarizations that provide a huge amount of data, thus dramatically increasing the detection performance and the level of accuracy of the survey.  

The analysis of the collected data will therefore allow avoiding damages to the buried infrastructures when performing the excavation for the heat-exchanger installation. 

GEOFIT at Sustainable Places 2020

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On Day 3 of the 4-day virtual Sustainable Places 2020 (SP2020) conference, Thursday 29th October from 14.00 – 17.00 CET, Marco Calderoni from GEOFIT contributed to the “Renewable Heating and Cooling Solutions for Buildings and Industry Workshop”, and the presentations and video recordings are publicly accessible.

Banner for “Renewable Heating and cooling solutions for Buidlings and Industry” at SP2020

The workshop brought together a selection of H2020 EU-funded projects involving experts from the biomass, geothermal, solar thermal and heat pump sectors to discuss a common strategy for increasing the use of renewable energy technologies for heating and cooling for buildings and industry. Renewable energy technologies for heating and cooling are safe, clean, efficient and increasingly cost-competitive. The workshop comprised four thematic sessions, namely “RHC for industrial applications”, “Storage solutions for RHC support in buildings”, “Innovative solutions for RHC deployment in buildings”, and finally the one that GEOFIT presented in called “Demonstration actions for RHC in buildings”.

Marco Calderoni from R2M Solution presented the GEOFIT project and highlighted first lessons learnt based on experience at the five demonstration sites.

R2M Solution organizes the annual international Sustainable Places conference, and the recent 8th as usual focused on the built environment at building, district, and urban scales to include our transport and energy infrastructures. Renowned for showcasing results coming out of the EU Horizon 2020 Framework Programme via the participation of cutting-edge research and innovation projects, the scope of Sustainable Places is captured directly in its name. It involves designing, building and retrofitting the places we live and work in a more sustainable way.

A GEOFIT poster was also displayed in the virtual room of Sustainable Places 2020.

Participating projects were: SWS-Heating – HYBUILD – CREATE – TRI-HP – HYCOOL – SHIP2FAIR – SUNHORIZON – Heat4Cool – GEOFIT – SCORES – Innova microSolar – Hybrid BioVGE – RES4BUILD – SolBioRev – FRIENDSHIP

Chair of the workshop: Andrea Frazzica (CNR ITAE) – partner of GEOFIT

Geothermal Catchment Field Completed at the Sant Cugat Pilot

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We have finished the geothermal catchment field in Pins del Vallès School in Sant Cugat, one of our five Geofit pilots. It consists of twelve 120 m deep vertical boreholes and one horizontal directional drilling.

Works carried out during the month of August include, on the one hand, drilling, installation of geothermal heat exchangers and pressure tests, and on the other hand, all civil and installation works related to the horizontal connection between wells and the plant room where the ground-source heat pump will be installed.

The next steps to be taken in our Spanish pilot include the installation of the passive cooling in the administrative building designed by Uponor and the installation of the new electrically-driven heat pump provided by Ochsner and currently under tests at AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH laboratory.

SIART and IDSGEORADAR Perform Structural Monitoring at Sant Cugat Pilot

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From 27th to 31st July, SIART and IDSGEORADAR were at Sant Cugat pilot for structural monitoring, during the same week drilling works started. The goal was to perform structural monitoring before and during drilling, and see any impact in the school buildings.

IDSGEORADAR installed a Hydra-G system which monitored real-time measurements of sub-millimetric displacements in the administrative building and in the primary school. This system provides the high-accuracy and resolution radar technology. The system was accompanied by an optical and infrared HD camera providing real- time visual inspection of monitored area, draping radar data on a 3D model of the scene created using the radar system.

On the other hand, SIART installed several accelerometers in both buildings, administrative and primary school, to monitor vibrations before and during the first drilling carried out on 31st July. The goal of monitoring before drilling works is to know the building frequency, and see, once the drilling starts, if it has changed due to the vibrations propagation throughout the terrain. Once data has been captured, SIART will analyze them and present some results.

On the left: one of the accelerometers installed by SIART; On the right: Hydra-G system and camera installed by IDSGEORADAR.

Drilling Works Have Started at the Sant Cugat Pilot Site

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On 31st July, Catalana De Perforacions (CDP) started the drilling works at the Sant Cugat demo site. The design of the geothermal field consists of 12 boreholes up to 120m deep and one Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD).

Image 1: location of the 12 boreholes.

While drilling the first well, some problems with the ground material, mainly clays, and the groundwater level at depths beyond around 60 meters were faced. The borehole heat exchangers are double U PERC 100 SDR 11 PN16, with a diameter of 32mm.

On the other hand, on 3rd of August, the works related to the horizontal connection between the collection chamber and the plant room where the Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) will be installed, also started.

These works, including the geothermal field and the horizontal connection between the chamber and the plant room, should be completed on 31st August according to schedule.

 

Image 2: the second borehole drilled

 

Image 3: excavation of the collection chamber of the pipes coming from the 12 boreholes

 

GEOFIT: Stakeholders and Markets, a Commercial Approach

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The stakeholders in a building retrofit project often are unfamiliar with shallow geothermal energy (SGE) technology and potentially have conflicting requirements [MUSE, 2019]. The following table shows the influence and interest of (in)directly involved stakeholders of typical SGE for building retrofit projects, in the framework of suggested management principles.

GEOFIT stakeholder matrix
Table 1. Preliminary GEOFIT stakeholder matrix

Building upon results of ‘sister projects’ such as the aforementioned MUSE, as well as GEO4CIVHIC and GRETA among others, GEOFIT takes a close look at the wide spectrum of SGE stakeholders in order to develop commercial-ready solutions. In order to gage SGE for building retrofit viability in Europe from a commercial standpoint, the typology of existing building stock is a critical factor. Therefore, one of the key images for this purpose comes from the Buildings Performance Institute Europe [1], shown below:

European Buildings at a glance

Another focus of GEOFIT Market Analysis is the sizing of market opportunities, defined by the specific technologies or ‘markets’ that together make up the full GEOFIT solution set. Initially investigated ‘markets’ include ground source heat pumps, heat exchangers, structural health monitoring,  geographic information systems, building information modelling, building energy management systems, architecture, engineering, and construction, horizontal directional drilling, project management software and services, heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning, and drones.

[1] http://bpie.eu/publication/europes-buildings-under-the-microscope/

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This project has received funding from the European Union’s H2020 programme under Grant Agreement No. 792210.

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