One of the main objectives of the project is to improve the drilling technologies for the borehole implementation, during the second period a prototype drill rig and innovated tooling have been tested and validated in different field trials. Although the project’s scope includes such prototype the consortium wants to go beyond. Based on the experiences in the field trials a new drill rig including certification and documentation have been developed and presented in this final period of the project.
Regarding the heat exchangers technology, in the second period an innovative high efficiency co-axial borehole heat exchanger has constructed and a system simulation tools for the innovative borehole heat exchanger have been developed. Also production of advanced design and simulation tools for foundation heat exchangers has taken in place. In this final stage of the project the performance of the whole heat exchangers technology deployed in the different pilot sites have been monitored and validated. Also the reduction of the installation, operation and maintenance costs has been proved.
In order to obtain a “plug-and-play” packaged solution, a heat pump prototypes have been installed and tested in the different involved pilot sites during the second period of the project. Also to make campaigns with the different prototypes and to changes some components to perform better in different operation models. In this very final period of the project a simple design tools and methods to help the end user/installer have been developed and also some fine tunings have been performed and also some heat pump’s problems have been solved.
The project also focused on the development of a whole system geothermal heating and cooling solutions for large buildings (EMS).The objective in this period of the project were to continue to validate the performance and algorithms developed during the previous period for the two EMS approaches.
In this reporting period the consortium has focused in the monitoring and validation of the innovative and integrated geothermal system solutions, on one side addressing the small scale buildings (drilling technologies, heat exchangers, dual source heat pump and control systems). On the other site regarding the large scale buildings (thermo activated foundations and a robust energy management system). Four different pilot sites were under review in order to demonstrate and validate the technologies deployed in each one.
Once the innovative technical solutions have been developed, installed and validated, the assessment of the market opportunities and consolidation of the exploitation and strategies have taken in place in this final period. The consortium performed a map of benefits for the newer technologies and a business model has been established.
Raising public awareness on the GEOT€CH solution, its benefits and potential applications, reaching the widest dissemination of the knowledge generated by the project. Dissemination and communication activities that are mainly consists of periodic updates of the project website, new promotional materials (Newsletter, videos and posters), social network and participation at events. Consortium partners participated in several national and international conferences and fairs of relevance to the research area, in order to disseminate project results to the identified target groups and gain interesting contacts for GEOT€CH that plays important role for technological and new knowledge impact of project.
