giselasoley, autor en GeoFIT

Time to Wrap Up! GEOFIT Last General Assembly

11 de October de 2022 by giselasoley

Taking the advantage of the pending visit to the Irish pilot sites in Galway and Aran Islands, the GEOFIT consortium organized its last General Assembly last week, from 5^th to 7^th October, in the University of Galway. It was time to look back at all the work done in the last 4,5 years and try to pack everything up.

During the first day, the consortium had the opportunity to visit the drilling site of the geothermal retrofitting of the Kingfisher Sports Centre of the University of Galway. The University campus is already part of Galway’s decarbonization zone, which is aggressively targeting a 51% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 and to decarbonize the campus by 2050.

Site works started in September 2022 on the lawn in front of the Alice Perry Engineering Building with 17 boreholes for a thermal network of underground pipes as part of a dual source ground-air heat pump system. GEOFIT will extract heat from the ground and feed two heat pumps to generate hot water which will be carried through an existing district heating network of underground pipes to warm the University swimming pool in the Sports Centre.

Project discussions focused on the work to be completed before the end of the project and results obtained from the life cycle assessment and life cycle cost of the geothermal systems installed in the five demonstration sites, performed in this last stage. We also discussed about last events and communication activities that are being made for the project; despite the short time left, we have our last external training, and several partners are attending the European Geothermal Congress held in Berlin next 17^th – 21^st October. GEOFIT website will be alive after the project and will contain all public materials drafted that can be helpful for those who want to learn more about enhanced geothermal systems specifically designed for retrofitting, as well as training programs.

Finally, the consortium visited the Aran Islands, where GEOFIT has one of its pilots. There, we could see the whole retrofitting carried out in one of the common houses we can find in the island. Retrofitting includes envelope insulation and low temperature heating geothermal system (floor heating and ventilation). Some technicians from the consortium checked the meters and fixed some monitoring issues raised during the last weeks.

Thank you all for the great meeting!

GEOFIT EXTERNAL TRAININGS SOON!

6 de October de 202223 de August de 2022 by giselasoley

September & October 2022

The EU-funded project GEOFIT is an integrated industrially driven action aimed to deploy cost-effective enhanced geothermal systems on energy-efficient building retrofitting.

Upon the completion of the pilots, it is time to present and share the results, and bring all the experience accumulated to potential stakeholders.

GEOFIT is organizing three virtual trainings addressed to professionals and researchers in the field of geothermal energy, renewables and construction sector who wish to learn more about Smart Geothermal Systems.

Download brochure

1st Training: GEOFIT Training on Ground Source Heat Exchangers and Geothermal Heat Pumps

Date: 20th September 2022 | 10 – 12 CEST

Speakers: Henk Witte (Groenholland) and Michael Lauermann (AIT)

What to expect?

This webinar will present the research, development and assessment of various typologies of heat pumps and ground source heat exchangers (GHEX) studied in the EU-funded project GEOFIT which focuses on geothermal retrofitting across a range of building typologies (residential, tertiary, educational).

Regarding GHEX, different typologies have been studied such as vertical and horizontal boreholes, slinky HEX, and earth baskets. Test campaigns were performed both in the lab and at the pilots and optimal geometries were studied aiding to the development of an engineering tool for optimal sizing of the GHEX which will be presented.

Regarding heat pumps, different typologies of electrical and heat-driven Heat Pumps (HP) have been optimised and implemented to include high temperature HPs with low GWP refrigerants, off-the-shelves HPs integrated in residential retrofitting projects, and hybrid HPs using gas and heat to supply heating and cooling. Results from analysis, prototyping and fielding will be presented.

Registration here

2nd Training: GEOFIT Training on On-The-Ground Experience with Four Pilots

Date: 27th September 2022 | 10 – 12 CEST

Speakers: Antonio Galindo (COMSA), Romain Lhomer (NOBATEK), Claudia Fabiani (UNI PERUGIA), Avril Ní Shearcaigh (CFOAT) and Anna Mundet (Sant Cugat Municipality)

What to expect?

This webinar will present the field implementations of four pilots from the EU-funded project GEOFIT.

A residential single-family-house on the Aran Island (Ireland). The building was insulated, provided with an innovative radiant floor heating and with an electric heat pump connected to a vertical borehole.
An elementary school in Sant Cugat (Catalunya, Spain). A large vertical boreholes field is supplying heat to an electric heat pump replacing some of the existing gas boilers. The horizontal connection boreholes field – technical room was achieved via horizontal directional drilling. A high temperature radiant ceiling system is providing free cooling in summer exploiting the vertical boreholes.
An office building in Bordeaux (France). A vertical borehole coupled to earth baskets are providing heat to a hybrid driven heat pump (gas- and electricity-driven) in an office building. The heat pump also provides cooling in summer.
A historic building in Perugia (Italy). The Sant’Apollinare Fortress was already equipped with a radiant floor heating system, which is now being supplied by a gas-driven heat pump. The heat pump also provides cooling in summer. Slinky geothermal heat exchangers have been installed.

The pilots in GEOFIT have resulted in a series of lessons learned and validation of scientific progress. Sharing these experiences is a key objective of the webinar.

Registration here

3rd Training: GEOFIT Training on Radar Technologies for Ground Inspection and Structural Health Monitoring, Thermal Load Estimation of Buildings and Use of Digital Twin Management Software (GeoBIM)

Date: 11th October 2022 | 10 – 12 CEST

Speakers: Guido Manacorda (IDSGEO), Fabio Giannino (IDSGEO), Joan Tarragona (EURECAT), Alessandro Piccinini (NUI Galway), Andrea Frazzica (CNR ITAE), Giuseppe Dino (CNR ITAE), Hugo Viot (NOBATEK), Henrikki Pieskä (KTH), Adriaan Brebels (iLECO) and Mikel Borràs & Juan Ramón (IDP))

What to expect?

This third and final training webinar will present a set of supporting technologies and processes for geothermal retrofitting resultant of work carried out in the EU-funded project GEOFIT. Topics and results to be presented include:

The use of Ground Penetrating Radars for soil inspection and Ground-Based Syntethic Aperture Radar for structural health monitoring / site quality assurance (with respect to risk)
Novel approaches and models to simulate the energy load of retrofitted buildings including the validation process
An advanced energy management system capable of making decisions based on energy tariffs
A newly developed digital twin environment called GEOBIM that including models of ground source heat exchangers

These technologies and their associated services / processes have been validated during the GEOFIT scientific program and pilot activities.

Registration here

Don’t miss the opportuniy to learn about GEOFIT main findings and results, especially, how you can benefit from this technology!

CEN Workshop Kick-off Meeting

4 de April de 2022 by giselasoley

The consortium of the GEOFIT H2020 project, funded by the EU, has been working during 4 years on an integrated industrially driven action aimed at the deployment of cost effective enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) on energy efficient building retrofitting. This action includes the use of 5 demonstration sites as open case studies in 4 CEN member states and corresponding different climates, featuring different representative technical scenarios/business models.

The creation of a CEN Workshop to develop specific guidelines that aid to the viable and cost-effective use of advanced enhanced geothermal systems was identified by the project consortium as a very useful way to disseminate the GEOFIT project findings and results, in accordance with the dissemination activities carried out to facilitate the acceptance and utilization by the market of the developed solutions through the interaction with the standardization system.

Thanks to the project partner UNE, the CEN Workshop on ‘Design and installation guidelines for a building retrofitting concept based on EGS’ held its kick-off meeting last Tuesday March 29^th, 2022.

The kick-off started with a brief presentation of all participants, followed by an introduction of the CEN/CENELEC and the Workshop concept. Several interested stakeholders were invited, and Marco Calderoni, as Geofit coordinator, gave a brief introduction of the project.

The Workshop structure was approved during the meeting (Marco Calderoni from R2M as WS chairperson, Ana Benedicto from UNE as WS secretariat, and Antonio Galindo from COMSA as the leader of the document writing, together will all WS participants – Geofit partners and open to everyone).

The main objective is to publish the CENELEC Workshop Agreement (CWA) by October 2022. During the kick-off, participants held first discussions on the first draft of the CWA.

For more information on the project plan, visit https://www.cencenelec.eu/news-and-events/news/2022/workshop/2022-02-25-egs/

CEN Workshop on ‘Design and installation guidelines for a building retrofitting concept based on EGS (Enhanced Geothermal Systems)’

14 de March de 20228 de March de 2022 by giselasoley

GEOFIT partners identified the creation of a CEN workshop as a useful way to disseminate the GEOFIT project findings and results in accordance with the dissemination activities carried out to facilitate the acceptance and utilization by the market of the developed solutions through the interaction with the standardization system.

Thanks to the participation of UNE, the CEN Workshop on ‘Design and installation guidelines for a building retrofitting concept based on EGS (Enhanced Geothermal Systems)’ is a reality, and the kick-off meeting will be held on March 29th, 2022, from 9.00 to 12.30.

The scope of the Workshop is to develop specific guidelines that aid to the viable and cost effective use of advanced EGS by introducing a novel concept on building retrofitting based on geothermal energy and EGS, through the integration and validation of a suite of technologies, tools and methods facilitating their easy application and massive deployment.

Event information

Date: 29th March, 2022

Time: Online from 9.00 to 12.30 CET

Agenda: You can find the project plan, full programme and more information for registration here

Works in Aran pilot site start!

11 de November de 2021 by giselasoley

The GEOFIT project landed on the Aran Islands and is retrofitting a house by means of a geothermal heat pump!

The Spanish drilling company Catalana de Perforacions arrived on site with their equipment and will drill a 100 m borehole in the house’s garden.

GEOFIT is showcasing the added value of geothermal heating and cooling in different kinds of buildings across Europe. The Aran demonstration site is the only one addressing a residential home.

After drilling the borehole, the existing radiators will be partially replaced by a low temperature underfloor heating system which runs at lower temperature, thereby improving the efficiency of the heat pump.

1st Training: GEOFIT Training on Ground Source Heat Exchangers and Geothermal Heat Pumps

2nd Training: GEOFIT Training on On-The-Ground Experience with Four Pilots

3rd Training: GEOFIT Training on Radar Technologies for Ground Inspection and Structural Health Monitoring, Thermal Load Estimation of Buildings and Use of Digital Twin Management Software (GeoBIM)

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