AdminCometPublishing, autor en GeoFIT

Completion of Civil Works at Perugia

8 de February de 20215 de February de 2021 by AdminCometPublishing

Civil works began on December 3^rd, 2020 at the Perugia Pilot. At that time, partner IDSGEORADAR performed a ground-penetrating radar measurements survey. Meanwhile, partner R2M operated UAV flights with and without a thermal camera. And all throughout the drilling phase, partner UNIPG completed the Structural Health Monitoring (SHM).

After one week, the works completed the shallow excavations of up to 2.5 meters deep. This meant the area was ready for the 50 centimeters of the sand bed that increases the conductivity on the ground.

*Excavated Area – 50 cm of sand bed on the bottom of the excavated area to increase conductivity*.

Later, on January 11^th, the company in charge of the fieldwork started the installation of the slinky GHEXs that go 2 meters deep. It considers 5 parallel trenches, with 1.35 m of mutual distance, 24 meters of average trench length, and 53 rings for each trench.

*Slinky GHEXs installation and FOC monitoring.*

After the GHEXs installation, on January 18^th, GROENHOLLAND came to the Perugia Pilot to install the fiber optic cable (FOC) monitoring. This technology has a particular approach that allows remote checking of the new system’s performance while matting underground temperature.

To increase the innovative aspects and the scientific relevance, UNIPG installed on the first two trenches, two parallel tubes of a drip plant that allows experimental evaluations and comparisons that consider different boundary conditions and configurations, such as with varying ground hydration content.

Finally, civil works were completed on January 28^th as soon as all the excavated area was backfilled with an additional 50 cm of sand. Also, the ground excavated material was reused on-site.

*Backfilling the area with other 50 cm of sand*.

Furthermore, all the heating/cooling system components: heat pumps, boilers, tanks, are available on-site. And today, FAHRENHEIT’s chiller also arrived at Perugia!

Presently, UNIPG is working to complete the whole installation by the end of March and to move forward with the commissioning of the system.

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

20 de January de 202119 de November de 2020 by AdminCometPublishing

The GEOFIT consortium successfully held our 6^th General Assembly (GA) on November 4^th and 5^th, 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.

Ground Penetrating Radar Analysis at Perugia

4 de November de 2020 by AdminCometPublishing

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

28 de January de 20212 de November de 2020 by AdminCometPublishing

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

25 de January de 20214 de September de 2020 by AdminCometPublishing

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

25 de January de 202112 de August de 2020 by AdminCometPublishing

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

25 de January de 202111 de August de 2020 by AdminCometPublishing

On 31^st 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 3^rd 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 31^st 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

25 de January de 202127 de May de 2020 by AdminCometPublishing

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.

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:

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/

Fourth Assembly in Bordeaux

4 de November de 20204 de December de 2019 by AdminCometPublishing

Bienvenue a Bordeaux! The most elegant city in France! Last week we were at the Geofit 4^th General Assembly where we had the chance to share all the advances achieved since the last meeting.

We managed to get into intense planning and discussing agenda, mostly related to very important issues regarding the implementation of the pilots and how the technical solutions and legal issues could be approached.

We found out, for example, of an interesting opportunity involving the different types of soils in the five different pilot sites. Drilling on different soils are options that can be explored and harnessed for the project interests.

The assembly also dealt with technical issues that will affect the activities scheduled for the next six months.

We also visited the demo site in Talence, in the very same building where we carried out the meeting. Our host (SAED) kindly showed the space where the future Geofit installation will be placed. It was almost as being on a living lab! Technical discussions and problem solving for the heat pump installation were part of the second day too.

The weather wasn’t very inspiring but we managed to get a very clear path for the next six months and everyone left with a positive feeling facing the new work roadmap. Merci la France!

Low Temperature Heating and High Temperature Cooling

25 de January de 20217 de September de 2019 by AdminCometPublishing

Article by Henrikki Pieskä (KTH) and Qian Wang (Uponor)

A heat emission system is an integral part of a building’s HVAC-system. Heat emission system is the interface between the heat source and the building user, so a proper design is essential both for energy efficiency and user comfort.

Example of a low temperature heating system combined with a heat pump (Hesaraki and Holmberg, 2014)

The objective of studying heat emission systems in GEOFIT is to present designs for innovative low temperature heating (LTH) and high temperature cooling (HTC) systems for the studied pilot buildings. There are many types of LTH and HTC systems, but common to all of them is that in comparison with conventional heat emission systems they require smaller temperature difference between the heat source and the conditioned space to operate the system.

LTH and HTC have therefore potential for increasing the efficiency of ground source heat pumps, because the smaller temperature difference means the heat pump has to do less work to cover that difference. In temperate climates it is in some cases even possible to use passive cooling, where a HTC system is directly coupled with a ground heat exchanger, thus bypassing the heat pump completely.

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